1936] MAMMALS OF OREGON 101 



LBPUS CALIFORNICUS WALLAWALLA MEBEIAM 



OREGON JACK RABBIT; KA-MOO of the Piute 



Lepiis texianm uallawallto Merriam, Biol. Soc. Wash. Proc. 17 : 137, 1904. 



Type. Collected at Touchet, Wash., by Clark P. Streator, September 18, 1890. 



General characters. Slightly smaller and slenderer than typical calif orwicus; 

 clearer gray with only a slight suffusion of pinky buff, top of tail and back 

 of ears with the same black areas. Winter pelage, upper parts clear iron gray 

 with a pinkish buff suffusion, darkened by tips of long black hairs ; top of tail 

 and back of ear tips bright black (pi. 24) ; lower parts whitish bordered with 

 buffy ; tip and under side of tail buffy gray. Summer pelage, paler and clearer 

 gray. Young at birth densely furred, coarse buffy gray, later paler and finer 

 gray. 



Measurements. Average of adults: Total length, 581 mm; tail, 101; hind 

 foot, 135; ear (dry), from notch to tip, 120, upper base to tip, 140. Weight of 

 large individuals given by Dice as approximately 5 to 6 pounds. 



Distribution and habitat. These jack rabbits cover practically all 

 of the arid sagebrush plains of eastern Oregon, from the eastern 

 base of the Cascades to the foothills of the Blue Mountains and into 

 Idaho, and from the Columbia River south into Nevada, mainly in 

 Upper Sonoran Zone; they are so free of foot, however, that zonal 

 boundaries are considerably overstepped. In places they enter the 

 edge of open timber, but their main range is on the sagebrush, 

 rabbitbrush, and greasewood plains (fig. 15). 



Abundance. Their greatest abundance is usually in the wide low 

 valleys where water or moist areas insure at all times a supply of 

 green food. In lesser numbers they are scattered over the widest 

 areas at long distances from water or moist land. They fluctuate in 

 numbers over a series of years and seem to have a more or less regu- 

 lar increase to maximum abundance, then a rather rapid decrease 

 to minimum, and again a long, slow period of increase, covering 

 several years. In the summer of 1896 in central and southern Ore- 

 gon, they were very common, and^in July and August of 1916 on his 

 way across eastern Oregon the writer found them in groat abundance 

 from the eastern edge of the State to the Malheur Valley and west- 

 ward. Apparently they were then at their maximum abundance. 

 They were being destroyed in great numbers and also were suffering 

 heavy mortality from various diseases. Again in 1920 across this 

 same route the writer found them in even greater numbers, appar- 

 ently again at the crest of their abundance and also rapidly dying off 

 from disease. Their abundance can best be illustrated by the num- 

 bers killed. In 1915 Harney County was paying a bounty of 5 

 cents each for rabbit scalps. Records show that during that year 

 1,029,182 scalps were presented for bounty on which $51,459.10 was 

 paid out (Oreg. Sportsman, 4 (2): 155, 1916). In 1914 several 

 rabbit drives were organized in the vicinity of Silver Lake, Lake 

 County, and more than 6,000 rabbits were thus destroyed (Oreg. 

 Sportsman, 2 (3) : 15, 1914). In the following year, in a rabbit 

 drive in Lake County, 2,000 rabbits were killed (Oreg. Sportsman. 

 3 (6) : 128, 1915). In 1916 about 100 sportsmen of Union County 

 made a rabbit drive near Telocaset and with shotguns killed about 

 2,000 rabbits, about a thousand of which were picked up and saved. 

 These few cases give some idea of the abundance of the rabbits in 

 the years of plenty. 



