658 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



till he got on the Coteau du Missouri, or over fifty miles west 

 of the Manitoba line.^ In 1882 I travelled all summer on 

 the Plains of the Souris, from Pembina River west to Turtle 

 Mountain and south-west from Brandon, and from Carberry 

 over the north-west country toward Fort Pelly, without seeing 

 or hearing of a Prairie-hare. In 1883-4 I travelled over the 

 prairies north and east of the Assiniboine, and stil met with 

 none but the common American Wood-hare. But in Sep- 

 tember, 1883, Miller Christy saw a Prairie-hare just west of 

 Fort Ellice, and in 1885 George F. Guernsey reported it 

 common at Fort Qu' Appelle. 



A. S. Barton, of Boissevain, writes me: *'The first Jack 

 I ever heard of here was in 1881; since then they have in- 

 creased." C. W. Nash saw one killed at Mountain City in 

 March, 1887. From this time it has spread steadily north- 

 ward and eastward. 



On August 26, 1892, I collected a specimen at Carberry. 

 This was their first record for Manitoba north of the Assini- 

 boine. None of the residents had ever seen one before. In 

 1894 Dr. S. J. Thompson tells me they became common at 

 Carberry, and in 1897-8 were so numerous that one could see 

 15 or 20 in a mile drive. About Napinka especially they had 

 become extremely numerous in 1898, and were proportionably 

 destructive to the crops. They now abound in all the rolling 

 prairie region of the Province. 



J. H. Cadham, after 35 years' residence in Manitoba, 

 tells me that the first he ever saw was near Winnipeg in 

 1896; in 1898 the species was seen for the first time at a 

 place 6 miles west of Stony Mountain. Farmers who had 

 lived there 15 years had never seen one before. It has 

 steadily increased, and is now found in all the prairie country 

 east of Red River, but not north of Winnipeg yet on the east 

 side of the river. The united testimony of witnesses is that 

 this Jack-rabbit is now found in all the open regions of the 

 Province, that it has advanced from the south-west, and is 

 rapidly becoming very abundant. 



^ Field notes, 49th Parall., 1878, Geol. Surv. Bull. 3, Vol. IV, p. 547. 



