578 
U. S. P. R. R. EXP. AND SURVEYS—ZOOLOGY—GENERAL REPORT. 
of Mack on the extreme tip of the ear, on both surfaces, about three-quarters of an inch long 
and about as wide. 
A spring specimen, 355, about changing, has the fur as if soiled with yellowish. The new 
summer fur is making its appearance in irregular patches of a brownish gray, washed with 
dirty yellowish, almost precisely as in Lepus campestris. The under fur is a dirty white at the 
base, with rather a more brownish tinge towards the tip ; the long bristle hairs are black, 
lighter at the base, and with a suhterminal annulation of grayish. 
In a young summer specimen the prevailing color is a mixed yellow-brownish gray and black, 
with, however, a strong plumbeous sooty tinge, which is very distinct in the fur of the sides 
and belly, where the bristle hairs are wanting. The rump is very decided sooty plumbeous, 
this color extending narrowly along the upper side of the tail, which elsewhere is a dirty sooty 
white. The exterior of the hind legs is tinged with sooty, of the fore legs with yellowish 
brown. The pads of the feet are dusky yellowish brown ; the anterior faces of the hind legs 
whitish. The ears are entirely of a glossy black, mixed a little anteriorly at the base with 
yellowish brown ; the extreme posterior edge is whitish. The under fur is as described in the 
preceding specimen. 
A winter skin from Greenland appears to have shorter feet and ears ; the former more densely 
furred. The black tip to the ears is only barely visible. 
I cannot find any character by which to distinguish the Lepus glacialis and L. variabilis of 
Europe when in their winter fur. The summer dress, comparing the young Newfoundland 
skin with one of L. variabilis var. borealis, from near Stockholm, is also much the same in both. 
The ears of the former, however, are much more intensely black. The whitish under fur above 
is less reddish ; the tips or suhterminal annulations of the coarse hairs are more gray instead 
of being of a reddish brown. The head has less of a cinnamon tinge. The resemblance is, 
however, certainly very close both in size and proportions, and with the difference indicated, 
both have the sooty on the rump and upper surface of the tail, the sooty tinge to the pectoral 
hand, &c. In the American animal the sooty tinge extends to the extremity of the chin instead 
of this being rather whitish. 
Winter specimens of L. variabilis, from the Highlands of Scotland, appear to have dispro¬ 
portionately smaller ears than those from Sweden, of either of the varieties, canescens or 
borealis. 
The skull of this species is very similar to that of L. variabilis of Europe; so much so as to 
render it very difficult to discern any difference in the specimens before me. It is much 
broader, shorter, and more curved than in L. californicus or callotis; it is considerably longer 
behind the post orbital notches than in L. Americanus. 
The polar hare is peculiar to the arctic portions of the American continent, the island of 
Newfoundland, where it is quite abundant, being its southern limit. Its western boundary is 
not known, though it probably extends across to Behring’s Straits. It is also an inhabitant of 
Greenland. 
