ZOOLOGY. 
131 
Length from olecranon to end of longest nail.. 5.36 inches. 
Length from heel to end of longest toe-nail. 4.50 do. 
From greater trochanter to end of toe-nail. 11.00 do. 
Span of fore and hind legs, extreme reach. 29.00 do. 
Length of longest whisker bristle. 3.60 do. 
Chin and upper portion of throat white. A white linear streak under each nostril, below 
which a line of the same color as the cheeks. Whiskers, some black ; the others white ; the 
latter longest. Toe-nail “coverts’’ white. External (posterior) edge of concave surface of 
ear white upon a subterminal edging of black. Hairs of breast and abdomen white to their 
bases. Eyes full. 
This hare is frequently found in the very thickest of the sombre Oregon forests. It also is 
plentiful among the shrub-oak bushes near the small lakes, on the Nisqually plains, where their 
well-beaten trails or “run ways” are very apparent. They are also fond of the woody edges 
of the prairies of that vicinity. In habits they much resemble the common wood hare of the 
middle States, (L. sylvaticus.) 
I have frequently heard of a hare that is found at the cascades of the Columbia, which, the 
settlers say, has a black tail. I never obtained a specimen from that locality, although I got a 
skin of the Lepus Washingtonii from a point only forty miles further down the river. I appre¬ 
hend that the “black-tailed hare” of the settlers is nothing more than the latter species, the 
dark lead color of the tail being mistaken by inaccurate observers for black.—S. 
LEPUS CAMPESTRIS, Bach. 
Prairie Hare; Townsend’s Hare. 
[For Sp. Ch., see chap. 2, p. 104.] 
The big hare, or jackass hare of the plains, is abundant on the plains of the Columbia east 
of the Cascades. In 1853 we were informed by the Yakima Indians living north of the 
Columbia that a very fatal disease had recently prevailed among these animals, which had cut 
them almost all off.—G. 
Townsend’s hare was obtained by me from two points quite remote from each other: the 
Missouri river, near the mouth of the Yellowstone, and the eastern slope of the Blue mountains 
of Oregon!—(See notes on these, chap. 2, p. 104.) 
Between the two points mentioned I saw in very cold weather, in the second chain of Rocky 
mountains, near Clark’s fork of the Columbia, a large hare, which was pure white , running 
through the forest on the snow. I have but little doubt that the individual belonged to the 
present species, which tends to settle the doubt, if any had previously existed, whether the 
kind varies in winter. The Missouri specimen was scarcely as large as that from Oregon, and 
was probably immature. Measurements: forearm, 4.75 inches; femur, 4.75; tibia, 5.50.—S. 
? LEPUS CALLOTIS, Wagler. 
Jackass Rabbitt; Texas Hare; Black-tailed Hare. 
[See chap. 2, p. 104.] 
These hares are exceedingly abundant on the left bank of Boise river, where they were so 
plentiful that a party of sixty men, to which I was attached, subsisted chiefly upon them for a 
