Prairie-hare oo!) 



railroad track for 200 yards, return backward, then jump and 

 squat. The double he beHeved was intended to hide the track. 



The food of the species is nearly everything that is green or food 

 grain. In the winter it adds to the list the bark of many shrubs, 

 and comes by night to the gardens and barnyards of the farmers 

 for a delightful change in the form of oats, hay, turnips, cabbage, 

 and indeed all the stock foods, for it has a 'crop for all corn.* 



The British Hare is credited by Robert Drane, of Cardiff," 

 with habitually eating its own dung, thus securing all nutri- 

 ment by a process of double digestion, a sort of reversible 

 rumination or post mortem chewing of the cud. This frugal 

 habit has not yet been observed in American Hares. 



It is a shorter task to enumerate the friends than the foes enemies 

 of the one who has all the world against him. Every bird, 

 beast, fish, reptile, insect, and disease makes fair game of the 

 Whitetail. It is the old story of the Hare with many friends 

 — none hate him, because all love him to eat. His only faith- 

 ful friends are his four fast legs and his fecundity. 



The eagles are among the most dangerous foes. Harry 

 Wells, of Clayton, N. M., says that in the Canadian River 

 country eagles are very destructive to Texan Jack-rabbits 

 when they can find them on the open prairie, but when under 

 a bush, no matter how small, the eagle will not swoop at them. 

 Doubtless the king of fowls has learned this discretion from 

 numerous sad experiences with Spanish bayonet, cactus, and 

 barbed-wire fencing. 



Hamlin Garland tells me that on the Colorado Plains he 

 once saw a Jack-rabbit pursued by a hawk. The Jack made 

 for a barbed-wire fence, and, dodging through, back and forth 

 beneath it, easily defied its pursuer. 



The Fox is another enemy to be dreaded, chiefly, how- 

 ever, by the young; it is unlikely that it often secures a full- 

 grown Jack. Dr. S. J. Thompson has given an incident that 

 shows how this foe may be discomfited. 



» Trans. Card. Nat. Hist. Soc, Pt. II, 1894-5. 



