18 JACK RABBITS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The true California animal was formerly supposed to extend east- 

 ward to the Colorado River and Arizona, but more recent investigations 

 sliow tliat it is restricted entirely to the region west of the Sierra. 

 Here, where the chaparral-covered slopes of the foothills dip down to 

 the valleys, it is most at home, mainly below an altitude of 3,000 

 feet. Rarely does it range above 5.000 feet, although in one instance 

 at least, on Mount Pihos, it has been found higher than 8,000 feet. 

 But the individuals found at these higher levels are few in number, 

 and are probably only stragglers which have wandered up from the 

 lower foothills. It avoids the dark, damp forests of the redwood belt 

 on the Northwest coast; but finding suitable localities beyond the 

 limits of its native State, it has crossed the Siskiyou Mountains and 

 taken possession of the Rogue River and Umpqua valleys in Oregon, 

 and is known to range" as far north as Comstock, in Douglas County. 

 Mr. Clark P. Streator reports that a single specumen, probably a strag- 

 gler, was killed near Eugene, at the head of the Willamette Valley, 

 about November 20, 1893. To the south this species extends some 

 distance down the peninsula of Lower California. 



While the limits of certain portions of this range are readily under- 

 stood from well-marked conditions of climate and topography, it is by 

 no means easy to explain the invisible but apparently sharjjly defined 

 lines which separate the California and Texan rabbits in the great 

 interior valley of California. Here they probably mingle with one 

 another, but at no point are their habitats known to overlap to 

 any great extent. Nor is it clear why the Texan Jack Rabbit, which 

 extends up the east slope of the Sierra as high as 7,000 feet and over 

 Walker pass (altitude 5,.')00 feet), should occupy only the bottom of the 

 San Joaquin Valley below 2,000 feet. This part of its range is inclosed 

 on both sides by that of Lex)us califoniicm, which is here restricted to 

 the foothills, but which spreads out to the north and covers the whole 

 exj)anse of the Sacramento Valley, as well as the slopes of the Sierra 

 Nevada and Coast Ranges. Briefiy stated, the white-bellied species is 

 found in the bottom of the San Joaquin Valley, while the buflf-bellied 

 animal occupies the Sacramento Valley and the adjacent foothills, as 

 well as those surrounding the San Joaquin Plains. 



The California Jack Rabbit is nowhere as abundant as the Texan 

 species. In some portions of the Coast Range only two or three indi- 

 viduals will be found over a large extent of country, and it is quite 

 rare in some of the valleys southeast of San Franciso Bay; but this is 

 due mainly to the settlement of the country, and the various means 

 adopted for its extermination. It is perhaps most abundant in the 

 Rogue River Valley, Oregon, along the western sloi)e of the central 

 part of the Sierra Nevada, and in the San Gabriel and San Bernardino 

 valleys. 



In speaking of the California species T. S. Van Dyke' says: "Few 

 animals are more graceful than this hare, whether skimming the 



^Southern California, 1886, p. 131. 



