298 ECONOMIC MAMMALOGY 



them to normal numbers. 9 The relation of rabbits to tularemia, which 

 affects human beings, is discussed in Chapter xm, on Mammals as 

 Disease Carriers. They also are among the hosts of the ticks which 

 carry the spotted fever. 10 



Rabbits are almost strictly vegetarian and feed upon all sorts of 

 vegetation. 11 When abundant, they cause a great deal of damage to 

 farm crops and range grass, and, by gnawing the bark, sometimes kill 

 fruit trees. In a small area in New York State the winter food of the 

 cottontails includes the bark, shoots, stems and small branches of at 

 least 71 kinds of trees and shrubs. 12 The summer food of the white- 

 tailed jack rabbits (Lepus townsendii campanins) in North Dakota 

 is largely grass and other prairie plants, growing grain, when obtaina- 

 ble; in winter, mostly browse on tips of branches and buds of small 

 trees and shrubs, including fruit trees and berry bushes. 13 Skinner tells 

 of a white-tailed jack rabbit eating dandelion stems at the rate of 80 

 in 10 minutes, discarding the seeds. 14 The varying hare (Lcpus anieri- 

 canus) has about the same food habits as the white-tailed jack rabbit. 15 



The Rocky Mountain snowshoe rabbits (L. bairdi) are very injuri- 

 ous to new growth of conifers in the Wasatch Mountains, Utah. They 

 continually eat back the tops, one small fir having been annually eaten 

 back for 46 years before one shoot grew beyond the reach of the rab- 

 bits. The loss, from this cause, of newly planted trees is very large. 

 Similar damage has been noted in Australia, Austria, England, France 

 and northern Europe. "It is reasonably certain that the rabbits will 

 increase as the coyotes decrease and that the injury to conifers will 

 therefore increase. With the destruction of a large number of coyotes 

 on the national forests the rabbits have had to be controlled, especially 

 in the vicinity of plantations." 16 Five jack rabbits eat as much grass as 

 one sheep. At only one rabbit to the acre the rabbits on a looo-acre 



"Gary, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 33, p. 161, 1911. Lantz, Cottontail rabbits in relation 

 to trees and farm crops, Farmers' Bull., No. 702, 1916; revised, 1924. Hewitt, The 

 conservation of the wild life of Canada, p. 218, 1918, citing Seton, Life histories 

 of northern mammals, I, 640-641 1909. Preble, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 27, p. 201, 

 1908. Soper, Notes on the snowshoe rabbit, Journ. Mammalogy, n, 101-108, 1921. 

 Seton, Lives of game animals, iv, Part 2, pp. 705-714, 1929. 



10 Birdseye, Farmers' Bull., No. 484, 1912. 



11 Palmer, U. S. Biol. Surv. Bull. No. 8, 1897. 



"Todd, Winter food of cottontail rabbits, Journ. Mammalogy, vin, 222-228, 1927. 



13 Bailey, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 49, p. 141, 1926. 



14 Skinner, White-tailed jack rabbit eats dandelion stalks, Journ. Mammalogy, 

 vin, 249, 1927. 



16 Bailey, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 49, p. 139, 1926. Ligon, Wild life of Ne^v Mexico, 

 N. Mex. Game Comm., p. 108, 1927. 



16 Baker, Korstian and Fetherolf, Snowshoe rabbits and conifers in the Wasatch 

 Mountains of Utah, Ecology, n, 304-310, 1921. 



