MAMMALS. 75 



is chiefly through trapping, either for specimens or to protect crops 

 and trees, but the more difficult and more interesting task of ex- 

 cavating their lengthy tunnels and making a thorough study of 

 their homes and of the animals when captured alive remains to be 

 performed by some one with ample time and qualities of keen and 

 accurate^ obserA^ation. Practically nothing is knoAvn of the- breeding 

 habits and family relatlions of these animals, and few -specimens of 

 the very young haVe ever been seen even by naturalists. The number 

 of embryos in females collected for specimens is usually four or 

 five, and apparently but one litter is raised in a season. 



Order LAGOMORPH A : Rabbitlike Animals. 

 Family OCHOTONID^: Conies. 



Coxy: Oehotoiui prmceps (Richardson), — The cony, pika. little 

 chief hare, or calling hare, as variously designated in published re- 

 ports, and McGinty rabbit, as sometimes called locally, is an odd little 

 rabbitlike animal the size of one's fist, with short round ears, short 

 legs, and no tail at all. The fur is a brownish gray color which 

 blends perfectly with the rocks among which the animals live and 

 renders them practicalh^ invisible except as the}' move or utter their 

 little lamblike bleat. 



Conies are connnon throughout most of the beds of broken slide 

 rock, or talus, near timberline of the whole park region. In 1895 I 

 collected specimens on the high ridges southwest of Red Eagle Lake, 

 and in 1917 found them in Gunsight- Pass, near Blackfeet Glacier, in 

 Piegan Pass, near Granite. Park, on the- side of Chief Mountain, on 

 Kootenai Pass, and near Waterton Lake. Generally the}' were in 

 the Hudsonian Zone and often at its extreme upper edge, where the 

 last traces of depauperate trees are found; but Avhere the. slide rock 

 extends far down the side of the mountain they follow it also to lower 

 levels, and at the north end of Waterton Lake they were common in 

 an extensive' talus slope at the lower edge- of the Canadian Zone only 

 50 feet above the level of the lake. The prime requisite for their 

 habitat is a mass of broken rocks under which they can take refuge 

 and make their* homes safe from numerous enemies. "Wherever ex- 

 tensive rock slides are found the conies ma}^ be looked for. In Piegan 

 Pass one lived in the mass of broken diorite. a little above where the 

 trail crosses the summit, and in Gunsight Pass their calls were heard 

 from a mass of broken rock just south of the trail. On Kootenai 

 Pass they were calling from the rocks close to the trail on the 

 southernmost of the two summits, over which it leads. In S^viftcur- 

 rent Pass there are good rock slides just Avest of the summit, and 

 while I did not hear any of the conies in them, remains of their last 



