536 



REPORT OF STATE GEOLOGIST. 



their iniinbers, these agencies of destruction have l)een counter- 

 balanced by the extermination of wolves, coyotes, wildcats and 

 other enemies. But where intensive cultivation removes harbor- 

 ing places, the rabbits are rapidly thinned out, although they do 

 not completely disappear, even in the suburbs of the larger cities. 



The cottontails possess another valuable asset in their unspe- 

 cialized taste. Although they never eat animal food, almost any 

 kind of vegetable matter serves as food. Tender clover, cabbage, 

 apples and other fruits and juicy vegetables are preferred, but 

 when such delicacies are not to be obtained they subsist for weeks 

 on twigs, bark, small shrubs or other coarse vegetation. During 

 the winter they sometimes destroy young orchards or forest trees by 

 gnawing the bark from their bases. However, they prefer the 

 more tender vegetation, such as the wahoo, Christmas fern, young 

 dogwood, sassafras, etc., to the hardwood trees like the oak, and it 

 is only in new plantations that they do much damage to forests. 



Occasionally they damage gardens, eating cabbage, beets and 

 other vegetables. I have seen a small plot of peas in an unfenced 

 garden cropped so closely by the rabbits that they never reached the 

 height of an inch. Clover, alfalfa, corn in the shock or the growing 

 ears in the milk are also eaten. 



During the summer evenings rabbits will lie at full length on 

 bare patches of compact clay and gnaw at the earth. This may 

 be for the purpose of obtaining salt or other mineral matter, but 

 I have watched them doing it along paths and in fields where 

 there was no reason to believe that there was a considerable quan- 

 tity of salt in the soil. At Mitchell I used to see them repeatedly 

 in the same place in the open woods near the cabin on University 

 Farm. The tooth marks were plainly visi])le as long as there was 

 no rain, and in this way it was possible to form an idea of how 

 much they ate. During one period of ten days they gnawed away 

 the earth to a depth of from one-fourth to half an inch, or even 

 more, on an area of approximately a square yard. 



One would exx)ect to find that such timid, defenseless creatures 

 would select a secure spot or dig an extensive burrow in which to 

 rear their young. On the contrary, they most often bring them 

 into the world in a nest made of grass, lined with fur from the 

 mother's ])ody and placcnl on top of the ground, although they 

 sometimes use a ready-made hole in tlie ground, or a hollow log, or 

 even excavate a little cavity in sofi earth under an old stump. 

 The; young are usunlly four in nunibei-. but may be from two to 

 seven. Mr. Bnller j-ccords finding young nt l^rookville oji January 



