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North American Leporidce. 81 



what a delightful counter-irritation it must have produced. The cry of 

 this hare is seldom heard, yet it can scream like an infant in distress. 

 I never but twice heard it — once when I reached into a pile of cordwood 

 and caught hold of the hind legs of one that had squeezed in between the 

 sticks. In pulling it out its skin was torn, and it yelled vigorously. I was 

 so surprised at this, I let go my hold and the hare ran away like a 

 streak. The hare can run with its hind legs tied together. Some German 

 hunters, near Grlendale, had caught one in a stone-pile, and when they 

 stopped for lunch, one of their number tied its hind legs together with his 

 red silk handkerchief. No sooner had he laid the animal on the ground 

 than away it dashed, taking the pocket-handkerchief with it, and though 

 the owner of the bandanna yelled, " Skoot him, Skoot him," his friends, 

 who had laid down their guns were too paralyzed with astonishment to 

 shoot, and the visions of " hasenpfeffer " vanished with the handkerchief. 

 I may add the disinterested spectators in the vicinity smiled audibly. 



The " prairie hare " {Lepus Campestris) from Kansas and Colorado is 

 called "jackass rabbit" in Kansas, and " snowshoe rabbit" in Colorado; 

 it is a very different animal however from Lepus Callotis, and turns nearly 

 pure white in winter. The specimen exhibited of this hare, is in the 

 autumnal pelage. One of the smallest of the North American hares is the 

 " little sage hare," {Lepus Nuttalii) found in the West, from Nevada 

 down to Texas. The speciman exhibited is from New Mexico, and killed 

 near where the Lepus Callotis was taken. Mr J. A. Allen has decided 

 this to be but a diminutive race of our sylvan hare and calles it Lepus 

 Sy vaticus var Nuttalii. They feed on the leaves of the sage and grease- 

 wood, and if the intestines are allowed to remain in the abdominal cavity 

 after death, even as long as thirty minutes, the flavor goes all through the 

 flesh and renders it so bitter as to be uneatable, but if they be immediately 

 drawn they are good eating. I found the jackass fellows tough, stringy 

 and tasteless, but waxed fat on the little ones, which I broiled in front of 

 the fire with festoons of pork wrapped around them. The only animal 

 that can catch the "jackass hare " is the greyhound and they can only do 

 it under favorable circumstances. I measured, by the tracks in the sand, 

 some of the down-hill leaps made by one of these hares and found them to 

 be over twelve feet. 



The hare crouches all day in its " form," which is a place in a tuft of 

 grass or weeds, hollowed out just the size of its body. In«this position it 

 is always ready to spring out and away. When started from its c< form " 

 it never goes back to the same one, but makes another; but if undisturbed 

 it uses the same one more than once. The white hare exhibited, is , Lepus 



