12 JACK RABBITS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



habits will reveal many points of interest and will arouse admiration 

 for the way in which they seem to overcome every adverse condition 

 of life, so admirably are they adaj)ted to their surroundings. 



Unlike the cotton-tails, or the common rabbit of Europe, these 

 hares do not live in burrows, but make ' forms ' under bushes or in 

 patches of weeds, where they find protection from the weather, and 

 also bring forth their young. Certain shrubs in the West belonging 

 to the genus Bigelovia are commonly known as 'rabbit brush,' because 

 they grow in dense thickets, in which rabbits are fond of hiding. 

 Where there are no bushes, the labbits seek the shade of any objects 

 which can shield them from the burning rays of the sun. A traveler on 

 the Southern Pacific Railroad, crossin.g the barren plains of the San 

 Joaquin Valley in California, where large stretclies of country are 

 devoid of bushes, luay sometimes see the jack rabbits crouching in the 

 shadows of the telegraph poles, evidently alarmed by the train, but 

 uncertain whether or not to forsake their shady spots and seek safety 

 in tiight. 



Extremes of climate ai»parently do not affect them to any great 

 extent. Some species are at home on the deserts of Arizona and Cali- 

 fornia; others, as the Prairie Hare, contrive to exist in the intense cold 

 of a Montana winter, when the ground is <overed with snow, and they 

 are compelled to live on the bark of shrubs or of willows growing along 

 the streams. 



Food. — Like otlier rabbits, they feetl almost i xclusively on the bark 

 and leaves of shrubs and on herbage, and hardly any land is too poor 

 to supply this food in some form. 



On the Great Plains, buffalo and grama grass and such herbs as 

 they can find constitute their jirincipal fare, but this is supplemented 

 in winter by the bark of wiUows. In the deserts of the (ireat liasin 

 they seem to be especially fond of the tender annual species of grease- 

 wood {Airiplex) and several species of ca<tus. If nothing better is 

 obtainable, however, they can subsist <>n Sorc<>hafu>i,iUKl shrubs which 

 other animals seldom touch. Sometimes it isdillicult to see where they 

 can obtain suflicient foo«l, but lack of water and of green herl)age serve 

 only to redu<'e their numbers and rarely cause their complete absence 

 from anyregit)n. Among the gieasewood on the alkali flats northwest 

 of Great Salt Lake, or on the cactus covered deserts of Arizona, the 

 jack rabbits are almost as fat and sleek as when feeding in tin* 

 alfalfa patches and vineyards of situthern California. If necessary 

 they can travel long distances for food, but as they seldom drink, 

 scarcity of water causes them little inconvenience, and the juicy cac 

 tus 'pads' or ordinary deseit herbage furnish all the moisture neces 

 sary to slake their thirst. They are fond of vegetables and alfalfa, and 

 when these cairbe had they (piickly abandon their usual food and establish 

 themselves nearthe garden or cultivati'd field. Their fondness for tender 

 bark makes them particularly destructive in the orchard and vineyard, 



