46 



JACK RABBITS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



rabbits were found iu large numbers iu Ash Meadows, Nevada, pre- 

 vious to 1891, but iu the spring of that year they were very rare. He 

 attributed the decrease to the prevalence of an eiiidemic, which had 

 been so severe as to render tliese animals almost extinct. In north- 

 eastern California Mr. A. C. Lowell, of Fort Bidwell, Modoc County, 

 mentions seeing many dead rabbits in the autumn of 1893. 



A similar occurrence is rej)orted by Mr. F. Stephens, near Beck- 

 worth Pass, Plumas County. Speaking of a trip through northeastern 

 Caytbruia in August, 1894, he says: " The epidemic among hares was 

 widespread through all the region I passed over north of Beckworth 

 Pass, being perhaps most noticeable in the Madeline Plain on the South 

 Fork of Pitt River and near the Nevada line south of Surprise Valley. 

 In all these places I saw daily dozens of carcasses near the road. The 

 only cause of death that I could see was the abundant warbles {Cutere- 

 hra) present in nearly all. It would seem, though, that these coul^l 

 only operate by lowering the state of health generally and that some 

 contagious disease was present." 



Dr. J. A. Allen' speaks of an outbreak that occurred in the vicinity 

 of Great Salt Lake in 1870-71, destroying large numbers of Lejrus 

 texiamis and L. campestris; and Prof. Marcus E. Jones states that 

 another occurred in Utah in 1885 or 1886. A similar instance of the 

 destruction of the Prairie Hare {Lepus campestris) has been mentioned 

 by Mr. Gibbs and Dr. Cooper, which occurred iu Washington north of 

 the Columbia River about 1853.' Mr. Clark P. Streator, while at Pasco, 

 Wash., near the mouth of Snake River, learned that another epidemic 

 had occurred among the rabbits in the vicinity during the summer of 

 1890. IVIaj. Chas. Bendire states that the inhabitants of the Payette 

 Valley, Idaho, claim that epidemics occur among the jack rabbits in 

 that region every five or six years. The following table gives briefly 

 the epidemics which have been reported in the West during the last 

 forty years, but the list is very incomplete: 



rartial List of E abb it Epidemics in the IFest, 



Monographs of American Rodentia, 1877, p. 372. 



