1936] MAMMALS OF OREGON 109 



Locally they may occasionally do slight damage to crops or young 

 trees, but in most cases this can be prevented at no great trouble 

 or expense, and the economic value of the rabbits for game and food 

 should entitle them to a reasonable degree of protection. 



SYLVILAGUS BACHMANI UBERICOLOR (MnxEE) 

 REDWOOD BRUSH RABBIT; OREGON BRUSH RABBIT 



Lepus bachmani ubericolor Miller, Acad. Nat. Sci. Pliila. Proc., p. 383, 1899. 



Type. Collected at Beaverton, Oreg., by A. W. Anthony, February 25, 1890. 



General oliaracters. Small and form compact; tail, ears, and legs short; 

 colors dark gray, without any white. Winter fur, upper parts dark rusty 

 brown, grizzled and clouded with black-tipped outer hairs, fading to clearer 

 brown toward spring; sides more grayish; top of feet, bottom of tail, belly, 

 and chin light gray or buffy gray. Summer coat slightly lighter brownish with 

 less black. Young almost the same as adults but fur more woolly or fuzzy in 

 appearance. 



Measurements. Total length, 310 mm; tail, 28; hind foot, 75; ear (dry), from 

 notch inside, 52, from upper base to tip, 60. Weight of adults, 1.25 to 2 pounds. 

 Dice gives weight of 3 adult females from Blaine as 768, 848, and 899 g, 

 respectively. 



Distribution and habitat. These dark-colored brush rabbits occupy 

 the humid coast section of Oregon from the Columbia River south 

 to California, and, with the redwoods, south to Monterey Bay (fig. 

 16). Generally they inhabit the brushy valley country and have 

 not been taken high up even on the coast ranges. A. K. Fisher re- 

 ported them at Glendale, at about 1,700 feet in the Umpqua Moun- 

 tains, and they extend up the McKenzie River Valley as far as 

 McKenzie Bridge at 1,800 feet. Their eastern limit of range seems 

 to be the western base of the Cascade Mountains. There are no 

 specimens of 8. b. ubericolor from the upper Rogue River Valley 

 above Grants Pass and the presence of S. nuttallii there would indi- 

 cate that they do not occupy this more open and arid valley. 



They are strictly brush rabbits, being most abundant where dense 

 cover of bushes affords safe retreats, but often found in the grassy or 

 weedy openings within easy reach of the thickets. They rarely enter 

 dense timber, and it may be the timbered slopes of the mountains 

 that keep them at low altitudes. Their short legs render the more 

 open valley spaces unsafe. 



General habits. Trusting in their concealing colors, these little 

 rabbits often sit motionless by the roads or trails and are passed by 

 unnoticed. On damp mornings they are fond of sitting in the roads 

 or trails basking in the early sunshine and drying the dewdrops from 

 their coats, but they soon hop away to some well-concealed form 

 under grass, sedges, weeds, or low bushes, where they sit during most 

 of the daytime. Even more than most cottontails they are mainly 

 nocturnal, and in the daytime are usually seen as frightened from 

 their forms or chased by dogs. In the early evening they may often 

 be seen nibbling the clover leaves and tender grass blades along the 

 edges of open fields and pastures. 



Breeding habits. Very little is known, or on record, of the breed- 

 ing habits of this group of cottontails, but they have the same num- 

 ber and arrangement of mammae 2 pairs of abdominal and 2 pairs 

 of pectoral as the other species of the genus and probably similar 

 breeding habits. 



