568 
this occurs but rarely in nature. While grain and roots may be 
eagerly eaten by these animals when they can be had, ordinarily by 
far the larger part of the food is the vegetative part of plants, in- 
cluding leaves, stems, twigs, and bark. Of these a wide variety is 
used. Much of their food is furnished by plants not useful to man. 
The rabbit is proverbially prolific, though not more so than 
many other rodents. There are usually four to six in a litter, and 
in this latitude probably at least three littersa year. Rabbits are 
polygamous. The young are born in shallow nests lined with grass, 
on which the mother lays hair from her own body. She occupies a 
separate nest near her young. They become mature at an early age, 
and may bear young—possibly two litters—before they are a year old. 
Rabbits destroy small quantities of small grain, corn, and 
vegetables, but this loss within the county can not be very con- 
siderable. Possibly their chief injury here is done by barking and 
enawing young trees. In other localities at least, this loss becomes 
a serious matter to the nurseryman and fruit-grower, though it is 
not apt to occur except where considerable snowfalls cover other 
sources of food. This has not often happened with us in recent 
years, and as fruit-growing is a very subordinate business in this 
county I doubt if the damage to fruit-trees by rabbits amounts to 
very much. 
As they furnish about the only game throughout most of the 
county, hunters are well able and more than willing to keep them in 
check gratis. If they were to be entirely protected for a few years 
over any considerable territory there is no doubt that they would 
become a pest. 
AMERICAN RABBIT; VARYING HARE; WHITE RABBIT. 
Lepus americanus Erxleben. 
(Swat. Neen, Abaswan. IL, WZ, jo, Ssi0))) 
According to Kennicott,* several individuals of this species. were 
shot on the present site of Chicago in the winter of 1824. It is 
probably extinct in the state at present. 
The species is much larger than the common cottontail, and its 
fur turns white 1n winter. 
It is a northern species, its range extending nearly to the Arctic 
Ocean. 
af Rep. Comm. Patents, 1857, p. 84. 
