Prairie-hare 657 



outliers and a fortuitous unprofitable development of tail 

 and ears. 



The only use I can see for the additional ear-flaps is as 

 a sort of roof when it squats in its 'form' during hard rains. 

 They cover its back like two long leather shingles or a pair 

 of empty gloves, and may ward off many an attack of pneu- 

 monia, etc. Their position when the owner squats is exactly 

 like that of a seaman's or fireman's hat, and similarly may 

 serve to keep the floods from pouring down the back of the 

 wearer's neck. 



Life-history. 



This, the largest of the Hares in temperate North America, range 

 has a wide distribution on prairies, plains, mountains, and in 

 forests of the north-west, apparently influenced by little but 

 climate. 



In Manitoba it is now found on all prairies, but it seems 

 to have been unknown in the early days, although Richardson 

 gives^ it a general range that includes the south-western part 

 of our Province. 



Alexander Henry, in his voluminous notes on the creatures 

 of Red River Valley (1795 to 181 2), did not record it for Mani- 

 toba, and but once for North Dakota. 



On October 21, 1804,^ while mounted on his ''famous 

 gray horse" and hunting near the junction of Pembina and 

 Red Rivers in Dakota, he "started a large Meadow-hare and 

 killed it only after a long chase, as they are very swift." 



Kennicott, the naturalist, who searched the Red River 

 Valley for small animals about 1856, did not meet with it. 

 Professor H. Y. Hind explored all the Manitoban prairies in 

 1858-9 without finding one. J. H. Cadham, who came to 

 Winnipeg in 1870, tells me that it was then unknown in 

 Manitoba. Dr. Elliott Coues collected birds and quadrupeds 

 all along the southern boundary of Canada in 1873 from 

 Pembina westward, and did not meet with the Prairie-hare 



' F. B. A., 1829, I, p. 224. ' Journal, 1S97, p. 251. 



