IS94-I 411 "^Bangs. 
with the bh^ck hairs of the back very conspicuous. Its ears are 
in color about half way between the two forms. The skull of 
this rabbit is also intermediate between the two, but is nearer 
sylvaticns than trmisUionalis. 
Three cotton-tails, Nos. 19, 20, and 747, Ijangs coll., from White 
Sulphur Springs, W. Va., are of interest. They were all three 
taken in the same patch of woods, by Mr. Thaddeus Surber ; two, 
Xos. 19 and 20, are extreme examples of transitionalis^ and 747 
is a fine Hylvaticus; undoubtedly here all stages of intergrades 
occur. 
Trans it ioiudis, therefore, does cross the lower Hudson IJiver 
and extend down the AUeghanies as far, at least, as West 
Virginia. 
Four skins in the Amer. mus. nat. hist., Xos. ffff, |-|^|, 1692, 
and fffl^, ave also worthy of mention. They are all four from 
southeastern Xew York, two from Hastings, one from South 
Nyack, and one from Suffolk Co. (Long Island). All four are 
intermediates and vary a good deal among themselves, but the 
general trend is rather towards sylvaticKs than transitioiifiJls. 
Lepus sylvaticus-, therefore, comes north along the coast 
almost if not quite to the lower Hudson in Xew York. 
All through Connecticut, Massachusetts, and southern Xew 
Hampshire, where T have mj^self killed a great number of cotton- 
tails and examined hundreds of others, principally in the flesh, 
one never finds an approach to sylvaticus ; the conspicuous black 
mark between the ears is always present and so is the darkening of 
the back, by the copious admixture of long, shining, black-tipped 
hairs. From the Carolinas on the other hand I have never 
st'cii a specimen that showed any approach to these markings and 
that could not be picked out at a glance. 
If the Carolinian form was in any way an intermediate between 
the northern and the P^loridan forms, I should not for an instant 
think of naming the northern one, but it is not, and strangely 
enough the two extremes are more nearly alike than either is 
to the true sylvaticus ; but there is no trouble in picking otit the 
four races at sight, and as geographical races go, they are as good 
as any. 
The only ones I am familiar with in life are syhuitAcKs and 
tra7isitionalis. Their surroundings are quite different, and this 
