parents in the character of their pelage, but are inferior in size to pure-bred animals. The ears and the tails of such hybrids are constantly rather shorter than those of the common hare. Fatio has himself examined such animals; they were procured in the Bernese Oberland and the Valais. Professor Theobald repeatedly received hybrid hares from the Oberhalbstein, and even kept one of them alive for a considerable period.
This subject has not received its proper share of attention from Scottish naturalists; but further research may prove, perhaps, that these blue and brown hares do, in some rare and exceptional instances, interbreed. Mr. Lumsden exhibited a supposed hybrid hare before the Glasgow Natural History Society. It had been shot in December 1876, near Dumbarton Moor, upon which blue hares had been turned out a few years previously. Mr. J. Cordeaux shot a similar animal in Perthshire in September of the same year. 'This example, which he compared the same day with pure specimens of both species, exhibited very distinctly a mixture of the colours of both parents, that of the common hare predominating. It differed also, in some respects, from the mountain hare, being generally larger, with larger head, larger ears, and broader forehead. The head keeper on this moor, an experienced
