Prairie-hare 665 



time I see a Whitetailed Jack-rabbit leap up from its near- 

 by lurking place. It never fails to be two things — unexpected 

 and superb. You never know where you may fmd a Jack — 

 no one does — you never see it till it leaps at close range and 

 lopes away on stiff four-cornered bounds, rising without 

 effort, like an Antelope, and switching its great white brush 

 from side to side like a miniature Whitetailed Deer; blazing 

 with snowy white and punctuated with sharp black spots on 

 his ears, it is the king of all its kind, the largest and finest of 

 the Hares. The Blacktailed Jacks of New Mexico and Cali- 

 fornia I got used to, without, however, entirely losing the little 

 sudden taste of a naturalist's joy, as the live, lithe things sprung 

 from my path; but the great Whitetail of the North, with its 

 sudden leap into life and showy contrast on the plain, where a 

 moment before it was a dead, invisible clod, never fails to give 

 the hunter thrill that can scarcely be felt when we slowly 

 creep up on a larger creature that we have watched and stalked 

 for hours. 



A bright pen picture of this Hare in its home has been 

 given by Dr. E. Coues:^ 



"The first sign [says he] one has usually of a Hare which 

 has squatted low in hopes of concealment, till its fears force it 

 to fly, is a great bound into the air, with lengthened body and 

 erect ears. The instant it touches the ground it is up again, 

 with a peculiar springy jerk, more like the rebounding of an 

 elastic ball than the result of muscular exertion. It does not 

 come fairly down and gather itself for the next spring, but seems 

 to hold its legs stiflfly extended, to touch only its toes, and re- 

 bound by the force of its impact. The action is strikingly sug- 

 gestive of the 'bucking' of a mule — an affair with which people 

 in the West are only too familiar. With a succession of these 

 high, jerky leaps the animal makes off, generally in a straight 

 course; there is nothing of the dodging or scutding about that 

 marks the running of the smaller Rabbits. As it gains on its 

 pursuers, and its fears subside, the springs grow weaker, just as 

 a flat stone 'skipped' on the water diminishes in length of the 



' Bull. Ess. Inst., VII (1S75), 1876, pp. 8c^8i. 



