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584 THE QUADRUPEDS OF ARIZONA. 
tending on the upper surface of the tail ; the under surface 
of which, as well as the surrounding parts, are white. 
The long ears are mostly grayish, or slightly fulvous, 
their posterior margins pure white, and their broad ends 
pure black for an inch or more. This parti-coloration 
heightens the conspicuousness which their size alone 
would give them. 
The Sage Rabbit (L. artemisia) is as abundant in Ari- 
zona as the Jackass-rabbit ; and, like the latter, has an ex- 
ceedingly extensive range throughout the West, from the 
Missouri region into Mexico, wherever the sage-bush, and 
other desert shrubs are found. It seems rather to avoid 
rich, grassy, and well-watered regions, and to take up its 
abode in the most sterile and desolate localities. Besides 
ordinary desert tracts, it shows a fondness for rocky, 
broken, and precipitous places, such as are usually 
shunned by the larger species, though the two are often 
found side by side. It burrows in the ground, and also 
lives under rocks, or in the crevices between them. It is 
a squat, bunchy little species, and its gait differs greatly 
from that of the hare. . It runs close to the earth, and 
instead of bounding over obstacles, scuttles around them 
with great agility. It is quite as difficult to shoot as the 
Jackass; for although slower of foot, yet it runs in a 
more tortuous and zigzag course. It squats so pertina- 
ciously in its hiding-places, that a small bush may be 
kicked several times before it will come out. It may not 
be generally known that this species, at least in some 
localities, changes its colors considerably in winter. At 
Fort Whipple I procured one in January, whose fur was 
very long, thick, and soft, and without a trace of the 
rownish or fulyous so conspicuous in summer. It was 
pretty much all over of a clear mouse or steel gray, 
