1936] MAMMALS OF OREGON 95 



Economic status. These hares are perhaps the best of all for food 

 and are almost always sound and healthy. They are much hunted 

 and usually prized as game animals. In some parts of the country 

 they are protected by game laws. Generally, however, they are able 

 to protect themselves quite effectively where there is considerable 

 extent of dense forest growth. In very rare cases they have been 

 known to cut young fruit trees and ornamental shrubbery during the 

 winter, but usually they are not in a position to do any serious dam- 

 age. In mountainous regions they may be considered practically 

 harmless and of considerable value as game. In some of the na- 

 tional parks and in forest areas where not hunted they show little 

 fear of man and often become half tame around camps and cabins, 

 thus affording one of the most attractive features of wildlife. 



LEPUS AMERICANUS KLAMATHENSIS MEREIAM 

 OREGON SNOWSHOE HARE; CHI of the Klamath (C. H. M.) ; ELOOUS of the Wasco 



Lepus klamathensis Merriam, North Amer. Fauna No. 16, p. 100, 1899. 



Type. Collected at Fort Klamath, Oreg., January 25, 1898, by B. L. 

 Cunningham. 



General characters. Size about as in the other snowshoe hares, ears medium, 

 tail small, feet large and hairy ; brown in summer, and either brown or white 

 in winter. Summer fur, upper parts grayish brown with back and edges of 

 ear tips black; throat brownish; belly, chin, inside of legs, top of feet, outer 

 edges of ears, and sometimes speck on crown white. Winter fur: Some in- 

 dividuals are merely slightly grayer than in summer, but most are pure white 

 all over except for dusky spots on back of ear tips. Young, like summer adults, 

 but duller with little or no white below. 



Measurements. Total length, 414 mm; tail, 39; hind foot, 126; ear (dry), 

 from notch to tip, 64. Weight of adult male, by Dice, 1,068 g=2 pounds 5 

 ounces. (1926, p. 9.) 



Distribution and habitat. Found throughout the Cascade Moun- 

 tains in Oregon from Mount Hood south to California, and in the 

 Sierra Nevada Mountains south at least to Lake Tahoe (fig. 13). 

 Along the' western base of the Cascades these snowshoe hares grade 

 into Lepus washingtonii of the coast region, and along the east base 

 they come down as low as the edge of lodgepole pine and spruce 

 timber and across into the Paulina Mountains. Their range is 

 mainly in the forest and thickets of Canadian Zone, where they are 

 generally distributed but never very numerous. 



General habits. These forest hares are shy, secretive, and rarely 

 seen unless driven from their hiding places under low evergreen 

 bushes in the forest or dense thickets of willows in the creek valleys. 

 Even then they are not easily seen as they slip away under cover or 

 behind logs, trees, or bushes. Their well-worn trails and their pellets 

 are often the only evidence of their presence. In winter their large 

 tracks on top of the snow or their well-worn and often deep runways 

 are better evidence of their presence and numbers, but the white 

 coats of most of the hares keep them well concealed even in the open. 



In March 1914 Harry Telford, of Klamath Falls, found them plen- 

 tiful in the lodgepole-pine thickets on the head of Wood River, 

 where they had burrows under the snow in brushy places and around 

 the tops of down trees. 



