THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
writes approvingly of “ sub species,” and would have the English form 
recognized as Lepus europceus occidentalism and its Scottish relative as 
Lepus timidus scoticus. 
It may be asked why these changes of names are considered desirable. 
The answer seems to be that in the opinion of a few controversialists the 
hare on which Linnaeus bestowed the appropriate name timidus was not 
the brown, but the mountain hare. 
The case is thus put by Major Barrett Hamilton at page 251 of his work: 
“ The hare to which Linnaeus applied the name timidus is not the common 
hare of Europe; but this fact was not at first understood, so that this name 
was widely applied to the brown hare as being much the better known 
species. After the discovery of the identity of the true timidus, some 
naturalists retained that name for the brown and adopted Pallas’s name 
variabilis for the blue hare. This course is still followed by a few zoolo- 
gists, especially biologists and those working on extinct forms; but the 
majority [ ? ] of authoritative systematic writers have now, although not 
without protest, agreed to adopt the next available name, viz., Pallas’s 
europceus for the brown hare, leaving the blue hare to be Lepus timidus 
as originally intended by Linnaeus.” 
To say “ as originally intended by Linnaeus” is begging the question. 
It is inconceivable that Linnaeus did not know the animal upon which he 
bestowed so appropriate a name as timidus. If there is one characteristic 
trait in the writings of Linnaeus, it is the felicity with which he selected 
specific names for the species which he described, bestowing in so many 
cases names indicative of some peculiarity whether of voice, colour or 
habit. Thus we have musicus for the song thrush, pre-eminently distin- 
guished for its song; torquatus for the ring ouzel, with its white gorget; 
cyaneus for the blue hen-harrier, to distinguish it from the brown one 
ceruginosus; arvensis for the skylark, pre-eminently a bird of the fields, 
as arborea is of the woodlands; frugilegus for the rook, a persistent picker- 
up of grain; and others. So with the hare, Linnaeus noticed a difference 
in habit of the brown hare and the mountain hare, the former ” timid ” 
and ever ready to seek safety in flight, the latter suffering a much nearer 
approach and sometimes squatting until nearly trodden upon. Linnaeus 
was far too close an observer to give to a species a descriptive name indi- 
cative of a habit which it did not possess. When he wrote in his diagnosis 
of the species, hyeme in frigidis niveus, he indicated that, like the 
mountain hare, it turned white, or partially white, in winter; it certainly 
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