PLAN OF THE DRIVES. 



49 



R 



\ 



meshes and are taken before tliey can escape." (Native Eaces of the 

 Pacific States, I, 1874, p. 428.) 



The Moki Indians, of northeastern Arizona, have practiced rabbit 

 driving for a number of years. The hunts are made both on foot and 

 with horses, and the rabbits are simj)ly surrounded instead of being 

 driven into an inclosure. A peculiar kind of weapon, resembling a 

 boomerang, is employed in these hunts, and is thrown with such accu- 

 racy that it proves very effective in the hands of Indians accustomed 

 to its use. Similar drives were also made by the Indians in northern 

 New Mexico, near Espanola. The Piutes and other tribes in Utah used 

 to assemble in large numbers in a valley near Cedar City, where they 

 engaged in a grand hunt each November, killing thousands of rabbits 

 for their skins and for food. 



The modern 'rabbit drives' are conducted on much the same plan 

 as those of the Indians, but precautions are taken beforehand so that 

 no escape is left for the ani- 

 mals when once surrounded. 

 A square or triangular in- 

 closure, open at one end, is 

 constructed of wire netting 

 — or of laths securely fas- 

 tened close together. Often 

 a corner of some old corral 

 is simply made rabbit-tight, 

 and from the open end of 

 the pen diverging fences or 

 wings are carried out in the 

 form of a wide-mouthed V, 

 sometimes for a distance of 

 2or3 miles (see fig. 1). The 

 fences are occasionally made 

 in sections, so that they can 

 be transported from one 

 place to another, and thus 

 used for several drives. The 

 Goshen Eabbit Drive Club, organized in the spring of 1888, had an 

 'outfit' which cost about $150, and was considered one of the best in 

 the San Joaquin Valley; it was used mainly near Goshen, but was also 

 moved to Huron, Fresno County, where it did duty for some time. This 

 outfit consisted of 1 mile of wire netting 28 inches wide, and 400 iron 

 stakes three-fourths of an inch in diameter and 3 or 4 feet long. The 

 stakes were set 15 or 20 feet apart, and the netting fastened to them. 

 At the apex of the wings a circular corral was built 60 to 200 feet in 

 diameter and provided with a sliding gate (see p, 50). 



Mr. Charles S. Greene, in describing the drive at Traver on April 8? 

 1892,1 states that the wings used on that occasion were made of wire 



D 



Fig. 1. — Diagram showing form of corral vised in rabbit 

 drive at Bakerafleld, Cal., Jan 35, 1888. 



A, B, portable wired picket fence, 1 mile long; C, corral; 

 D, drivers; E, entrance to corral; R, rabbits. (From Am. 

 Field. 1888.) 



' Overland Monthly, 24 ser,, XX, July, 1892, p. 54. 

 8615— No 8 4 



