MAMMALS OF UTAH 101 



do not reach far enough down to be of any use. These inser- 

 vient molars show that the ancestral rabbits of prehistoric 

 days had four large front teeth instead of two. 



A rabbit's front leg bones are so constituted that they 

 cannot be turned inward and used as hands when the ani- 

 mal is feeding. Thus a rabbit may reach high to nibble 

 some tid bit, but its feet hang helpless during the process. 

 In fact the rabbit does not use its front feet except when 

 running and in manifesting anger by stamping. 



Briar grown berry patches, sage covered ravines, iso- 

 lated clumps of bushes, whether on the roadside or on the 

 mountain slope — ^these are the haunts of the cottontail. 

 Creek bottoms and places of impenetrable foliage suit his 

 fancy to a nicety; winter and summer, he thrives on a 

 woodland only a few rods square. 



The food of the cottontail is more varied than that 

 of most other animals, as it includes in summer, fruit, 

 grasses, vegetables, and almost any herbaceous bit its fancy 

 selects, and, in winter, dead grass, buds, the bark of poplar, 

 willow, dwarf birch trees and occasionally tamarac. Some- 

 times it eats white cedar and spruce leaves. 



WESTERN WHITE-TAILED 

 JACK RABBIT 



LEPUS CAMPESTRIS TOWNSENDI (Bachman) 



Lepus townsendi Bachman, Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila. VIII, 

 pt. I, pp. 90-94, pi. II, 1839. 



Description — Color of fresh summer pelage: Head 

 and upper parts of body nearly uniform dark gray, varying 

 from an almost silvery tone to a dull and slightly pinkish 

 gray with an underlying brownish shade; underfur tipped 

 with dusky brownish, darker and less buffy than in caiti- 

 pestris; front fore legs and tops of fore feet dull grizzled 

 buffy gray, sometimes becoming dingy buffy on tops of 

 feet,^ outside of hind legs varying from plain dull gray to 

 drab gray; tail white, sometimes with a considerable 

 amount of dusky or black, forming a narrow but well- 

 marked median line on top ; tops of hind feet white, some- 

 times with a slight mixture of gray, or a little buffy about 

 toes; nape dingy gray, sometimes with a smoky brown or 

 dull buffy brown suffusion; front half of outside of ears 

 dusky gray; posterior half white with a distinctly more 

 restricted black tip than in sierras or campestris; inside 

 of ear with a dusky area along posterior side and bordered 



