Rabbits and Hares 



titled to this name. It differs slightly in its proportions from the 

 other species and is habitually a burrowing animal. The rest of 

 the tribe, as a rule, make nests on the surface of the ground 

 and are, properly speaking, hares. It is useless, however, to try 

 to fix the application of names so firmly established and we must 

 therefore take them as we find them. The big hares of our 

 northern States are either varying hares or "snow-shoe rabbits," 

 our little hares are "rabbits" or "cottontails" and the large 

 hares of the plains are "jackass rabbits." 



While rabbits fail to show much variation in structure among 

 themselves, differing for the most part in size and colour, they 

 are, however, sharply separated from all the rest of the gnaw- 

 ing tribe, and can be recognized at a glance. The popular eye 

 notes at once the long hind legs and consequent jumping gait, 

 the large ears, and the stumpy upturned tail. Look more closely 

 and we shall find other peculiarities. The soles of the feet are 

 not bare as in most rodents, but are covered with hair, which 

 accounts for the lack of sharp definition in their footprints. Open 

 the mouth and behind the two big front teeth of the upper jaw 

 the sign of the rodent as it were we shall find another pair 

 of little teeth which do not reach far enough down to aid in 

 the gnawing. These are obviously of no use to the rabbit of 

 to-day, but are none the less interesting since they show us that 

 the ancestral rabbits of the past had four large front teeth instead 

 of two, and the species now living form in this respect a sort of 

 connecting link between other mammals and the rest of the 

 rodents in which all trace of these teeth has been lost. Such 

 characters, apparently most trivial, often throw much light upon 

 the history and relationship of animals. Looking further into the 

 anatomical structure of the rabbits, we find another interesting 

 peculiarity in the arrangement of the bones of the fore legs, 

 which are placed so that they cannot be turned inward and used 

 as hands when the animal is feeding. 



This habit is common to almost all other gnawing animals 

 and is most familiar in the case of the squirrels which hold their 

 food tightly in their fore paws as they sit upright upon their 

 haunches. Rabbits will often raise the fore part of the body 

 clear of the ground when reaching upward, but the fore feet 

 hang useless during such operation. In fact, beyond their use in 

 running the fore legs seem only to be brought into play in a 



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