Natural History 377 



RABBITS AND HARES 



America is well provided with rabbits and hares. A 

 score or more of species are now recognized, and two very 

 well-known types are the cottontail of the woods and the 

 jack-rabbit of the plains. 



The cottontail is much like an English rabbit, but it 

 is a little smaller, has shorter ears, and the whole under 

 part of the tail is glorified into a fluffy, snowy powder-puff. 

 It leads the life of a hare, not making burrows, but entering 

 burrows at times under the stress of danger. The track 

 of a New England cottontail is given in Illustration 4. 



As the cottontail bounds, the hind feet track ahead 

 of the front feet, and the faster he goes the faster ahead 

 his hind feet get. This is true of all quadrupeds that bound, 

 but is more obvious in the rabbits, because the fore and 

 hind feet differ so much in size. 



The jack-rabbit of Kansas is the best known of the 

 long-eared jacks. His trail, compared with that of the 

 cottontail, would be as in Illustrations 5 and 6. 



The greater size of the marks and the double length 

 of the bounds are the obvious but not important differ- 

 ences, because a young jack would come down to the 

 cottontail standard. The two reHable differences I found 

 are: 



First, the jack's feet are rarely paired when he is bounding 

 at full speed, while the cottontail pairs his hind feet but 

 not his front ones. (Animals which climb usually pair 

 their front feet in running, just as tree-birds hop when 

 on the ground.) 



Second, the stroke that is shown (x in Illustration 5) 

 is diagnostic of the southern jack-rabbit; it is the mark 

 made by the long hanging tail. 



Each of the four types of hare common in the temperate 



