'894.] 413 
cotton-tail appeared in that country and had been gradually- 
working north till at the present time it was common forty miles 
south of Mount Forest. He failed to get any skins for me as he 
left the country soon after, so I am unable to tell the race, but 
suppose it to be Lepus sylvaticus mearnsi. 
I think this march of the cotton-tail to the north is in a great 
measure due to the change man makes on the face of nature. 
The great coniferous forests disappear, and theii" place is taken 
by a scrubby second growth largely of shrubs and hard wood. 
The hare goes with the coniferous forest, and the cotton-tail 
comes with the second growth. 
Lepus americanus virginianus is getting to be a rare animal in 
Massachusetts. I know of only a few places where it still exists. 
At Princeton in some places the laurel {Kalniia latifolia) is 
for a long distance the principal undergrowth in the woods, 
and here, among the old twisted and distorted stems and 
sheltei-ed by the broad evergreen leaves, the timid and retiring 
hare still finds some protection. A few still remain in some 
of the swamps near Concord, and a few also in Berkshire Co. 
There are probably more in the extensive cedar and maple 
swamps of South Middleboro, Carver, and South Wareham 
than anywhere else in the State, but everywhere they are 
relentlessly pursued. The habit of not holing ujj but of run- 
ning before the dogs like a fox, and the larger size of the 
hare, make it much sought after by sportsmen, ami a patient 
and persevering man with good dogs can get every one in 
time. 
In New Hampshire the hare is still common in places, but in 
many parts of the State it has wholly disappeared. 
To the north, however, through Maine and New Brunswick, 
it is very abundant, and in Nova Scotia it is thicker than I have 
ever seen the cotton-tail anywhere. Near Digby, N. S., I once 
knew half a dozen boys to kill over eighty in a day, without 
dogs, but by still hunting after a light snow; and my friend 
H. A. P. Smith of Digby killed in the winter of 1893-94 over 
two hundred in the woods about his house while training some 
beagle puppies. Here the hare lies pi'incipally in the thick 
second growth spruce and fir, and in the wetter woods where 
alders are mixed with the spruces. They are never found in 
