The Cottontail 



Their food seems to be of much the same general character 

 as that of the white rabbit though perhaps a little more varied, 

 including fruit and all kinds of garden vegetables when convenient, 

 though the damage done in this way is hardly worth consider- 

 ing, in which respect it sets an example which the Old World 

 rabbit might profit by. 



Like the other members of its race it often endeavours to 

 escape notice by crouching motionless wherever it may happen 

 to be, often allowing itself to be all but taken before it will 

 move, and at such times no amount of being stared at will 

 frighten it or put it out of countenance. There it will sit per- 

 fectly motionless except for the trembling of its whiskers and 

 the motion of its breathing until you seem to be just on the 

 point of grasping it, when it quietly slips from beneath your 

 hands and races away. f 



I have seen one sitting in plain sight on the snow among 

 the scattered sumachs not ten yards from a path along which 

 loads of hay were being hauled from the salt marsh to the upland. 

 Five or six teams must have passed it, some of them followed 

 by dogs, and still it sat there undisturbed in the sunlight, ap- 

 parently absorbed in its own thoughts. 



The young ones, four or five inches long, are often met 

 with in summer all alone beneath the ferns and brambles and 

 very serious and reserved little chaps they are, too, with their 

 great black eyes and absurd looking triangular mouths forever in 

 motion, as if repeating over and over to themselves some lesson 

 which they fear they may forget. 



Varieties of the Cottontail 



1. Common or Southern Cottontail. Lepus floridanus mallurus 



(Thomas). Range and description as above, 



2. Florida Cottontail. Lepus floridanus Allen. Darker all over, 



with no conspicuous black edgings to the ears nor black 

 spot between them. 

 Range. Southern Florida north to Micco. 



3. Northern Cottontail. Lepus floridanus transitionalis (Bangs). 



More richly coloured than the southern cottontail, with 

 many long black hairs scattered over the back, black bor- 

 ders to ears and spot between them very distinct. 

 Range. Alleghany Mountains and northward east of the 

 Hudson to southern Vermont and New Hampshire. To 



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