CHAPTER III 

 RABBITS 



AFTER surveying eight important rabbit States, I am convinced that the 

 characteristics of rabbit populations, and the factors determining their 

 abundance or scarcity, are more difficult to decipher, and are receiving less 

 thought and study from sportsmen and naturalists, than is the case in any other 

 species of small game. 



There is no unanimity of opinion, for instance, and little real evidence, on 

 the question of whether shooting greatly affects rabbit abundance. The effects 

 of disease and parasites on the fluctuation of rabbit populations are beginning to 

 be discernible for snowshoe rabbits, but for cottontails remain obscure. There 

 has been some work on what predators eat rabbits, but their net effect on rabbit 

 populations remains an unanswered question. The survey found hardly a shred 

 of real evidence on what constitutes a high or low population per unit area. The 

 food of rabbits is practically unknown, especially in its seasonal variations. Their 

 breeding habbits are comparatively unknown. The sex ratio, especially during 

 shortages, is unknown and possibly important. The important characteristic of 

 "holing up" in the more northerly part of their cornbelt range is not, to my 

 knowledge, mentioned in the literature, nor often discussed by sportsmen or 

 naturalists. The radius of mobility, and consequently the effective radius or 

 refuges, is utterly unknown, and I have never heard it mentioned by naturalists, 

 or by game officers who have invested large sums in refuges intended partly for 

 rabbits. 



There is almost as great a dearth of knowledge in some other game species, 

 but its insufficiency in these other cases is beginning to be discussed. We hear 

 of research projects, fellowships, experimental areas, surveys, and other indica- 

 tions of actual effort on every hand. The rabbit, however, is still regarded as a 

 fixed fact of nature, needing control operations here or protective legislation 

 there, but never facts on which these or other management measures can be based. 



The U. S. Biological Survey has established a rabbit experiment station at 

 Fontana, California, but its efforts so far are centered on commercial production 

 of domesticated varieties. Possibly it can ultimately branch out and study the 

 far more important wild species. 



History and Distribution. Cottontails, like quail, evidently experienced 

 a large increase in abundance during the period of crude agriculture. The first 

 settlers found them scarce in what is now the center of abundance, namely the 

 riverbreak type. Cockrum, in his "History of Indiana" (1907), says, "there are 

 20 rabbits here now (Gibson County) to one in 1840." He grew up with a 



[89] 



