48 JACK RABBITS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



hemp; the net is kept in a vertical position by pointed sticks attached 

 to it and driven into the gronnd. These sticks are placed about .") or 6 

 feet apart, and at eacli one an Indian is stationed with a short club in 

 his hand. After these arrangements are completed, a large number of 

 Indians enter the circle, and beat the bushes in every direction. The 

 frightened hares dart ofl" toward the nets, and, in attempting to pass, 

 are knocked on tlie head and secured. Mr. Pambrun, the superintendent 

 of Fort Walla Walla, from whom I obtained this account, says that he 

 has often participated in this sport with the Indians, and has known 

 several hundred to be thus taken in a day. When captured alive, it 

 does not scream, like the common gray rabbit {Lepns sylraUcns).^' 



The Indians of southern Oregon also carried on rabbit drives some 

 years ago, especially near the Oregon-Nevada boundary line, near Port 

 McDermitt. Several hundred rabbits were killed at a time aiul util- 

 ized for food, while their skins were made into clothing. During his 

 second expedition, Col. J. C. Premont found the same method of cap- 

 turing rabbits used by the Piutes of Nevada and eastern Oalifornia.i 

 In describing one of his camps on the east slope of the Sierra Nevada, 

 evidently near the head of the Truckee River, he says, under date of 

 January 31, 1844: "We had scarcely lighted our fires when the camp 

 was crowded with nearly naked Indians; some of them were furn- 

 ished with long nets in addition to bows, and appeared to have been 

 out on the sage hills to hunt rabbits. These nets were perhaps 30 to 

 40 feet long, kept upright in the ground by slight stakes at intervals, 

 and were made from a kind of wild hemp, very much resembling in 

 manufacture those common among the Indians of the Sacramento 

 Valley." 



Maj. Chas. Bendire, while returning from Deep Spring Valley to 

 Camp Independence, CaL, in November, 1860 or 1867, saw the Indians 

 engaged in driving jack rabbits on the east side of Owens Valley, a few 

 mdes south of Bishop, A corral had been made by stretching low nets 

 between stakes placed about 20 feet apart. Into the inclosure thus 

 formed the animals were driven from a considerable area in the valley, 

 and it w^as estimated that 300 or 400 rabbits were killed in this drive. 

 The nets were made by the Indians, and each hunter was required to 

 furnish his quota. Mr. P. V. Coville, botanist of the Death Valley 

 Expedition, learned that similar nets were formerly used by the Indians 

 of Ash Meadows, Nevada. These nets were made i'roni the Indian hemp 

 [Apocynum cannahhium), which furnishes a strong and excellent fiber. 

 The same material was evidently used by the tribes in the eastern part 

 of the State, for Bancroft, in speaking of the Indians near the Utah 

 boundary, says; "The Gosh Utes take rabbits in nets made of flax 

 twine, about 3 feet wide and of considerable h'ugth. A fence of sage 

 brush is erected across the rabbit paths, and on this the net is hung. 

 The rabbits m running quickly along the trail become entangled in the 



■ Kept. Expl. Expd. to Oregon and Calif., 1845, p. 227 (House Doc. No. 166.) 



