THE LIVING WORLD. 
487 
tinguished by length and mode of articulation of the legs, which unite to spe¬ 
cially adapt them to their leaping mode of locomotion, and to their no less 
customary squatting for concealment, or for rest. The front paws are five-fin¬ 
gered; the hind paws, four-fingered. The palms and soles are furred, and the 
paws are not used as hands. The temperate and frigid zones are, as one would 
expect, the favored habitat of the family, although species are found in south¬ 
ern Africa and India. 
HARES. 
The genus Lepus , which includes- the animals designated in common 
language by the names of hares and rabbits , is characterized by a peculiarity 
in the incisors of the upper jaw, which have behind them two smaller teeth of 
nearly the same form; by the flattened summits and transversely disposed 
plates of enamel of the grinders, of which there are six above and five below 
on each side ; by a tuft of hairs on the inside of the cheeks ; by the elonga¬ 
tion of the ears, and by the abbreviation and recurvature of the tail. 
The Common Hare, of England and the Continent of Europe {Lepus 
timidus), presents the following characteristics: the body is large, compressed 
and deep; the neck very short; the head of moderate size, convex above, 
broad and obtuse in front, the nose being depressed, the lips tumid or swollen 
and separated by a deep incision ; the eyes very large, prominent and inserted 
laterally; the ears of the same length as the head, narrow, deeply concave and 
with the tips rounded. The hind legs are much the longer and have only 
four toes, while there are five on the fore feet; the soles of all the feet are 
covered with hair; the claws are rather long, slightly arched, compressed, some¬ 
what acute, but those of the hind feet blunted in older individuals. The tail 
is very short and recurved. The fur is of two kinds, as in all the species of 
this genus ; the longer hairs are very slender at the base, enlarged towards the 
end, recurved and intermixed with still longer straight hairs ; the shorter, ex¬ 
tremely fine and tortuous. On the feet the longer hairs predominate, and are 
straightish and rather stiff, on the ears they are short; on the nape of the 
neck they are wanting. The mystachial bristles are long, faintly undulated on 
two opposite sides, disposed in several series, the lower forming a tuft; five or 
six long bristles arise over the eye and some shorter ones beneath it. The 
hair on the lower parts is longer, on the tail soft and woolly. The fore part of 
the mouth within is covered with stiffish woolly hairs. 
The upper parts are light yellowish-brown, mingled with a dusky color on 
the back and sides, and with gray on the hind quarters; the fore part of the 
neck and a portion of the breast are a dull, light yellowish-red, as are the feet 
and part of the flanks; the abdomen, inside of the thighs, and a large patch 
on the throat, are white; there is a whitish line over the eye, and a patch of 
grayish-white before it, the ears are pale yellowish-red on their anterior margin 
externally, dusky intermixed with yellowish-red on their anterior half, whitish on 
the posterior, with a patch of black at the end; internally with whitish hairs 
at the base, dusky at the middle of their posterior margin, reddish-white in 
the rest of their extent, except the margin of the tip, which is black. The 
tail is black above and white beneath, or rather behind, as it is recurved. On the 
upper parts the hair is grayish-white, sometimes pure white at the base, dusky 
beyond the .middle, and yellowish-brown at the ends ; the elongated slender hairs 
are black, but on the sides of the body and the lower parts, reddish or white. * The 
