81 



special attractions, might invite many hares together. 

 All places are alike to them; the oldest frontiersman, 

 probably, could never guess with any degree of certaint}' 

 where the next hare to bound off before him would appear. 

 If it have any preference, however, it is for "weedy" 

 tracts of wdiich the sage brush regions furnish the best 

 examples ; there it finds shelter which the low, crisp, 

 grass of rolling prairie does not afford, and also doubtless 

 secures a greater variety of food. Like many other ani- 

 mals of the great plains, it appears independent of water ; 

 but we must judge this to be only an appearance. 



In the regions where I have studied this hare, the 

 female brings forth in June and early July — oftener the 

 latter — and apparently only one litter is produced each 

 season. The number of young is five or six, as a rule. 

 The form is simply constructed, without burrowdng, in 

 the grass beneath some low, thick bush or tuft of weeds. 

 The young are said to suckle and follow the mother for 

 a month or more. They are agile little creatures, even 

 "when only a week or two old, and it is only when very 

 young that they can be caught by hand. lu travelling 

 along the Milk River (where the species was abundant), 

 early in July, I had several little ones brought to me, and 

 some I kept for a time in a box. They had been stum- 

 bled upon as the}' dodged about in the grass, disturbed 

 from their nest by the passage of our party. Though 

 only five or six inches long, they had all the motions and 

 attitudes characteristic of the parents, and made shift to 

 run about quite cleverly. They could not eat, but some 

 of them could be coaxed to lick a little milk. Their ap- 

 pearance, even at this early age, was unmistakable ; the 

 differences between them and young sage rabbits of the 

 same size are elsewhere given. By the end of July we 

 happened upon no prairie hares still so young as to be 



