Varying Hare 
or in the woods near by, and I am convinced that purely by chance 
we had intercepted the little band in its march southward and 
that those killed in this and the neighbouring towns that season 
where none had been seen for years, were wanderers from some- 
where farther north, impelled southward by the same unreasoning 
impulse that is said once in every seven or eight years to drive 
the lemmings southward from the Arctic Ocean, and which, to a 
lesser degree appears to affect most of the smaller fur-clad animals 
of the North. 
Only the winter before | had tramped through these same woods 
after almost every tracking snow, and | am able to say positively that 
the gray rabbit was the only species to be found there, and 
three years later it was the same again; the only one that has visited 
these woods since then, as far as I can learn, being a solitary 
individual that the next winter passed within half a mile of the house 
where I write, going due southeast without swerving more than a 
few rods from a direct course at any time and crossing open fields 
and meadows indifferently. 
I followed its tracks closely for nearly two miles and saw 
no evidence of its having stopped to eat or rest at any time. 
Finally it struck off across a wind-swept field where the drifting snow 
wholly obliterated its footprints, and | have often wondered what 
eventually became of the solitary wanderer hopping away alone 
towards the sea whose roar was already distinctly audible only 
a few miles away. 
From what I can learn | should say that the border land between 
the countries of the white rabbit and the gray is somewhere between 
forty and fifty miles to the north of this southeastern corner of New 
Hampshire; beyond that I have been unable as yet to find the gray 
rabbits, though for the first thirty miles they are as abundant as they 
are here, and further west their range is said to extend well up into 
Canada. 
Mr. P. C. True writing from Pittsfield, New Hampshire, under 
date of March 1st 1899, says: ‘‘] have consulted a number of veteran 
fox hunters here and gathered what information I could on the 
subject. 
‘“‘The white rabbits, or jacks, as they are called here, have 
almost disappeared; what few are left are found only in the big 
forests. | am told that the cause of the departure is that the conies 
devour their young; conies are very numerous as were jacks previous 
85 
