104 
JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 
largest traps. The reason for all this tampering with meat baits by 
rabbits, leads to a subject which, I believe, is not widely known and to 
which I will refer later. 
Eventually, evidence of the inevitable decline arrives. Empire 
among the rabbits as elsewhere has its rise and fall, and then is swept 
away. A strange peril stalks through the woods; the year of death 
arrives. An odd rabbit drops off here and there, then twos and threes, 
then whole companies die, until the appalling destruction reduces the 
woods to desolation. There is something almost spectacular in its 
compass, in its silent and sinister progress. I have walked the woods 
where formerly, hundreds of playful rabbits dwelt, where signs were 
evident on every hand, yet the woods were empty. A peculiar sense 
of loneliness comes over one under such circumstances. One year (1917) 
in the district of Sudbury, northern Ontario, the signs of rabbits were 
everywhere but not a single rabbit could I start. It seemed incred- 
ible. Local inquiries disclosed that a little over a year before the Lepus 
population was beyond count. Now as if by magic they were gone. 
Needless to say, however, a few individuals survive the epidemic. 
These now, because of their paucity are seldom encountered. The 
following year at Eidout, same locality, I observed a noticeable increase. 
Not that they were plentiful or even common, by any means, but there 
were frequent trails in the early snow and I started occasional animals. 
In these few existed the prophecy of another dominion. 
There is such a sense of sociability in a wilderness well stocked with 
these animals, that a subsequent lack of them is at once appreciated. 
One is sensible of a loss. In the same way the moose bird with his 
quaint talkative ways becomes one of the presumptive elements of a 
camp. One night while we were camped near the Athabaska, with a 
mere square of canvas sufficient only to deflect the wind, it snowed, a 
calm fluffy fall of several inches. It fell over and about our sleeping 
forms and in the morning imprinted in it were the tracks of rabbits 
all around us. They had nosed up to every conspicuous object about 
camp — the water pail, ax, overturned boots, etc., had even kicked the 
ashes of the extinct camp fire over the snow and eventually to their 
satisfaction I presume had solved the enigma of this sudden encamp- 
ment in their midst. Several trails completely circled our camp. At 
the time we were entirely unconscious of these frolics. On other occa- 
sions morning betrayed their fearless errands about camp, during which 
they had actually browsed on a quantity of spruce boughs placed to 
resist the wind at our heads. Again we knew nothing of it until day- 
