USES OF RABBIT SKIFS. 69 



quin Valley where the jack rabbit is now extremely abundant, used 

 rabbit skins for making robes. They cut the skins into narrow strips, 

 and after drying them in the sun, laid them close together and made a 

 rude warp, by tying or sewing strings across at intervals of a few 

 inches.^ 



In order to show some of the uses to which jack rabbit skins might be 

 put, it will be necessary to refer briefly to the general trade in rabbit 

 skins and some of the ways in which the lower grades are utilized. 

 The annual collection of English rabbit skins is about 30,000,000, and 

 50,000 to 80,000 dozen (600,000 to 960,000) are imported from France and 

 Belgium. These skins are dyed and sold for fur to be used for caps, 

 boas, muffs, and trimmings of various kinds, and are used for felting, 

 especially in the manufacture of hats. Skins for felting are cut open, 

 washed, and the long hairs pulled out with wooden knives; the fur is 

 then cut off by machinery, sorted, and blown by air. The fur from 

 different parts of the body is separated and sold at different prices. 

 The best Coney back wool used in the manufacture of felt hats brings 

 from 5s. to 7s. 6d. per pound.^ 



In the United States skins of native rabbits are used for fur, if at 

 all, only for trimmings, as the hair is too brittle and they have very 

 little underfur. Large numbers, however, are used for felt in the 

 manufacture of hats. It is estimated by one of the leading furriers in 

 New York that 1,500,000 native skins are collected annually in this 

 country. In addition to these, rabbit skins are imported, not only 

 from G-reat Britain and the continent of Europe, but even from Aus- 

 tralia. Native skins are mainly those of the cottontail {Lepus sylvat- 

 ieus), and the sirpply is derived largely from Maryland, Virginia, and 

 Korth Carolina. They are assorted into three grades, 'primes,' 'sec- 

 onds,' and 'culls.' Prime skins are those of full-grown animals with 

 bright pelts; 'seconds,' of half grown animals; while the torn or imper- 

 fect pelts are classed as 'culls.' The prices range from 1| up to 4 

 cents apiece, averaging during 1895 about If to 2 or 2^ cents for the 

 best skins. Imported skins are considered superior to those of "cot- 

 tontails," averaging in value about 3^ cents each, although the best 

 French rabbit skins are worth 5 cents. One of the New York dealers 

 reports that skins of the native hare, probably the Varying Hare 

 {Lepus americanus), are worth 6 cents each,^^but that very few are 

 received in a season. England, however, in 1801 received 36,286 skins 

 of the American Varying Hare from the Hudson Bay Company, and 

 50,000 from other traders. It may be stated here that the Hudson 

 Bay Company has been shipping rabbit skins to England for more than 

 one hundred years. Most of these are skins of Lepus americanus, and 

 according to Poland^ the total number exported between 1788 and 1890 



iPowers, Tribes of California, Gout. N. Am. Ethnology, Vol. Ill, 1877, p. 351. 

 ♦Poland, Fur-bearing Animals, London, 1892, p. 281 et seq. 

 »ioc. cit., pp. xxiii-xxvii, 276-277. 



