414 SOME FOUR-FOOTED PESTS OF THE FARM 



members of this species may bear one or possibly two litters before 

 they are a year old. 



Injurious Work of Rabbits. Clover and alfalfa are favorite 

 foods, as are many of our garden vegetables and fruits, and the 

 writer has discovered to his cost that the cottontail will eat the 

 tender tips of growing tulips. Gray rabbits are most destructive 

 in the winter, eating the bark of orchard trees and nursery stock, 

 frequently biting off the trees in a nursery with a cut as smooth 

 as that of a knife, and in the same way pruning uncovered grape- 

 vines and ornamental shrubs. 



FIG. 399. A cottontail rabbit. 



The natural enemies of rabbits include almost all of our 

 larger hawks, the marsh owls, and the great-horned owl. Crows 

 sometimes kill young rabbits. Weasels, foxes, prairie wolves or 

 coyotes, and probably minks and skunks, also prey upon them. 



The relentless warfare continually waged against hawks and 

 owls, foxes, coyotes, and skunks is, in a large measure, responsible 

 for the prevalence of rabbits and field mice in numbers great enough 

 to do serious injury. 



Rabbits are intermediate hosts for internal parasites of the 

 fox and coyote. In summer time the presence of one or more of 

 these is unpleasantly evident, andbots and ticks are also found 

 upon them in the warm weather. In winter, rabbits are of some 

 value as food for man. 



