104 NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA [No. 55 



tents and the pellets showed that grass formed the greater bulk of 

 their food in this section. Alfalfa and clover are their favorite 

 foods, for which they will come long distances from the surrounding 

 country. Also any growing grains and most garden vegetables are 

 eagerly sought and eaten when available. In winter their native 

 food consists largely of browse buds, twigs, and bark, of a great 

 variety of small bushes and young trees and a deep snow helps by 

 raising them to a fresh and more abundant food supply. They are 

 also very fond of well-cured hay and will gather from all the sur- 

 rounding country at haystacks, either of meadow grasses or alfalfa, 

 the latter being apparently their favorite winter food. At times they 

 gather in such numbers as to cause heavy losses to unprotected stacks. 

 They often gather along the banks of ditches and edges of ponds 

 and streams, but the writer has never seen them actually drink water, 

 and believes that they are in search of fresh vegetation, from which 

 apparently they get most of their water supply. As much of their 

 food consists of saline plants, they seem not to be attracted to salt, 

 as rabbits are in many other places. 



Economic status. In moderate numbers these jack rabbits would 

 have a value as game animals. Even when abundant they might be 

 utilized to advantage. Usually when not abundant they are in fairly 

 healthy condition and are good food, especially the not-fully-grown 

 young of the year, which may be used in country districts when 

 other game is out of season and meat is scarce. As many of the 

 diseases with which they are troubled are merely local parasites under 

 the skin or in the body cavities, the use of the animals as food need 

 not be seriously affected. As game animals these rabbits afford some 

 sport in hunting either with dogs or as still hunted in the open sage- 

 brush areas. To obtain a jack rabbit running at full speed through 

 the sagebrush requires a degree of skill with a shotgun fairly com- 

 parable with wing shooting. With a rifle, they tax the best marks- 

 manship. If their numbers could be kept down to a harmless abun- 

 dance, free of disease, they could well rank as a food and game 

 animal. 



On the other hand, when uncontrolled, they become one of the 

 most serious of farm rodent j)ests. Especially in the arid part of 

 eastern Oregon their destruction of forage and crops has been a 

 serious handicap in the development of the country. The destruc- 

 tion of grass and other forage plants by the rabbits takes just that 

 much from the support of livestock on the range and in pastures 

 and fields. Like most arid regions the sagebrush plains were orig- 

 inally fully stocked with native animals so that in dry times there 

 was only sufficient food for those present. Later, as the game was 

 killed and the country filled up with sheep, cattle, and horses, the 

 open range generally became overgrazed and the vegetation greatly 

 reduced in abundance. At present on much of the open range there 

 is barely enough food left for the jack rabbits without any stock, 

 and parts of the country have been practically given over to them. 

 In seasons of unusual drought the food supply for the rabbits be- 

 comes so reduced that these animals have to seek the valley bottoms 

 for a more permanent supply. Thus their inroads on meadows and 

 pasture land become serious. In the Malheur Valley much of the 



