THE JACK BABBIT IN CALIFOBNIA 



75 



warfare against them since 1875, and also 

 because of the continually greater occupa- 

 tion and cultivation of the country. The 

 rabbit drive, one of the unique and pic- 

 turesque features of early life in the West, 

 no longer occurs in California. This is cer- 

 tainly well ; for those days of special holi- 

 day, of closed schools, of general rejoicings 

 and barbecues, when men, women, and chil- 

 dren gathered from miles about, driving the 

 rabbits into a corral, where as many of 

 the people present as desired competed in 

 the work of clubbing the helpless, screaming 

 creatures to silence and death — those days 

 must have been indelible lessons in cruelty. 

 We remember that the number of rabbits 

 killed in a single drive ranged from a few 

 hundreds to twenty thousand; that in 1888, 

 rabbit driving having reached its height, 

 newspapers estimated that 40,000 rabbits 

 had been killed in Fresno County during the 

 spring, and 70,000 in Kern and Tulare coun- 

 ties, respectively; that the total number of 

 drives in California up to 1898 was more 

 than two hundred, with half a million rab- 

 bits destroyed. 



Today, only twenty years after the largest 

 rabbit drive California ever knew — 1896, 

 Fresno, 8000 people, 20,000 rabbits killed— 

 the custom is becoming a forgotten thing 

 of the past. Those parts of California where 

 the greater number of drives took place have 

 changed in aspect. San Joacjuin County, for 

 instance, from being the leading county in 

 the production of wheat, barley, rye, and 

 hay, with fewer than two thousand farms (a 

 third of these containing more than five 

 hundred acres each), has become noted for 

 its irrigation projects and its success in in- 

 tensive farming. The farms now number 

 several thousand and are relativelv small. 



Grain fields have given place today to or- 

 chards and vineyards, market gardens and 

 dairies. 



And the jack rabbit? He had most pic- 

 turesquely held sway over the fertile valleys 

 and plains as well as over the drier foothills 

 before the arrival of the settlers from the 

 East. Breeding rapidly, and each individual 

 having a life probably eight or nine years 

 long, the hosts had grown strong, maintain- 

 ing their numbers despite the inroads of 

 natural enemies and disease, despite the at- 

 tacks of the Indian, whose greatest pride was 

 his blanket woven of twisted strips of rabbit 

 fur. But, like the Indian, the jack rabbit 

 has been driven from his dominion. The 

 great army of the fleet-footed has been 

 routed and the remnants forced back to the 

 strongholds of infertile foothills. He is now 

 becoming only an unnoticed part of the 

 state's wild life, of its small game, no 

 longer important enough to carry a bounty 

 on each pair of the long ears. 



So as we tramp the foothills and see an 

 occasional jack bound into air and race 

 away, its lithe body superbly built for grace 

 and speed, we forget that it has known any- 

 thing but the relatively peaceful life it led 

 in past ages and now leads among the rocks 

 and dry slopes of the foothills. Here the 

 adult today yields to few enemies outside of 

 the coyote. Its speed distances any dog, 

 and the slow badger has no chance in the 

 chase. It is likely that many young rabbits 

 succumb to these enemies as well as to 

 skunks and weasels, to say nothing of the 

 barn owl, the western red-tailed hawk and 

 the marsh hawk. But other young rabbits, 

 those who survive, reach maturity equipped 

 with the fleetness and with the great wari- 

 ness of their ancestors. 



