CHAPTER II. 



ABUNDANCE AND RAPIDITY OF INCREASE. 



It is well known that jack rabbits are very prolific, and reference 

 has already been made to tbe great numbers found together in some 

 parts of California, Idaho, Nevada, aud South Dakota. Similar 

 instances might be mentioned for southeastern Colorado and central 

 Utah. But the best illustrations of extraordinarv abundance iu lim- 

 ited areas can perhaps be found iu California. In Modoc County, in 

 the northern part of the State, nearly 25,000 jack rabbits were said' 

 to have been killed in three months on a tract of land only 6 by 8 

 miles iu extent; this was during the period when the bounty law was 

 iu force. A still more remarkable case has been recorded in the San 

 Joaquin Valley. Some of the early drives near Bakersfield took place 

 on a ranch less than 1 square mile in extent. In the first drive, on the 

 afternoon of January 2, 1888, 1,126 rabbits were killed; as soon as the 

 animals were dispatched, the same field was passed over again and 796 

 more killed. A week later, on J anuary 10, there were two drives on the 

 same ground, the first resulting in the destruction of 2,000 rabbits, the. 

 second in more than 3,000; in the latter an adjoining field was also 

 driven over. It was estimated that altogether about 8,000 rabbits 

 were killed on this ranch in nine days. The ' Kern County Echo' of 

 March (8 ?), 1888, stated that a total of about 40,000 rabbits had been 

 killed iu the drives about Bakersfield from January 1, 1888, up to that 

 date, and referred to an estimate that two-thirds of the rabbits killed 

 in the drives were females and the average number of young of each of 

 these was 3^. On this basis it was computed that had these 40,000 rab- 

 bits lived two months they would have increased to i;>r),000. When 

 it is considered how much iujury a single rabbit can do, the damage 

 which such an army of rabbits is capable of infiicting would hardly be 

 less than that caused by a grasshoppei- i)lague. 



Suri^rise is sometimes expressed that jack rabbits are not entirely 

 exterminated in regions where they have been mercilessly slaughtered 

 for years, and it might be supposed that ;ininuils which live on the 

 open i^lains Avithout even the protection afforded by burrows or holes 

 of any kind, could easily be kept within bounds, though the}' have 

 comparatively few natural enemies. But experience has shown that 

 this is no easy matter. Ada County, Idaho, which has been systemat- 

 ically killing off the jacks for fifteen years under the bounty system, 

 received more scalps and expended more money for this purpose during 



1895 than in any year since the bounty law first went into effect iu 1878. 

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