1936] MAMMALS OF OREGON 111 



of the Blue Mountain Plateau and the eastern base of the Cascade 

 Kange over about the southeastern quarter of the State, wherever the 

 sagebrush is sufficiently dense to protect them from enemies. They 

 are absent from all open country where there is not an abundance 

 of Artemisia tridentata or Ckrysothamnus and hence have numerous 

 wide gaps in their range. Locally they are abundant, but only 

 where conditions are most favorable. Over wide areas they do not 

 occur. 



General habits. The pygmies are burrowing rabbits, living in 

 well-made underground dens (pi. 25) of their own construction and 

 usually in family groups, or at least the old and young together. 

 Their burrows are unmistakable in both size and general plan, being 

 generally about 4 inches in diameter and entering the ground on one 

 side of a sturdy sagebrush and coming out on the other. There are 

 always 2 and sometimes 3 or more doorways for entrance and escape, 

 and while a badger is digging down on one side of the bush the 

 rabbit can pop out and escape on the other side. Some old dens have 

 been used for years and have many openings and seem to run deep 

 down. Those dug out have been rather simple, only 1 or 2 feet deep 

 and 6 or 8 feet long. Occasionally a new burrow has not been dug 

 clear through, but these are generally avoided. No trace of nests 

 or food was found, nor anything but enlarged chambers where the 

 rabbits could sit and turn around comfortably. 



The burrows are used as refuges by the young, or as last resorts 

 by adults when hard pressed, the rabbits depending more on their 

 trails and regular runways for protection. The trails lead away 

 from the burrows, through and under the densest sagebrush, and at 

 frequent intervals between sturdy trunks where no larger animal 

 can follow. The rabbits are not swift and would be easily caught in 

 the open, but they disappear as if by magic in the shadows of the 

 bushes. A ranch boy at Imperial told the writer that he had caught 

 them on foot when they were forced out of the center of a patch of 

 grain he was mowing, but that was in the down grain and stubble. 

 In their trails, the writer could not catch even the young in a fair 

 race. 



Apparently they are more diurnal than most of our rabbits, as 

 they are often seen moving about in the sagebrush at any time of 

 day, although more often jumped out of their shady retreats under 

 the bushes. As many as eight have been collected in an hour, and 

 probably 40 seen in that time. Some were sitting near their door- 

 ways, others in shallow forms under the bushes, and others feeding 

 or hopping along the trails. 



Dispositions. Often several sage rabbits are seen near together, 

 but they seem not to notice each other. One half -grown young or 

 the year and a larger one that the writer drove into one burrow and 

 dug out were found close together in the farthest end of a side 

 tunnel. They were evidently not of the same family as the larger 

 one tried to keep the other out, making a scolding quer, quer, quer 

 at it, until finally both were driven down. When kept in a cage 

 together they frequently quarreled, and the second day, while un- 

 watched, the larger one killed the other, tearing the skin off its back 

 and cutting deep into the flesh with the knife-like hind toenails. 

 Later the writer discovered these savage weapons by receiving sev- 



