Vo 1 . 9, No. il 
Page 5 
Legumes are readily used by nesting hens, and the mowing of legumes appears to 
attract broods (Monthly Wildlife Research Letters, September and October, 1966). 
To maintain insect availability for the growing chicks, a limited acreage of legumes 
seeded and mowed for hay may be desirable provided the mowing can be done with 
minimum danger to broods. Legume fields at Bogota which were mowed several times 
by farmers during the summer of 1966 stayed green ana maintained an abundant supply 
of insects. Conversely, the Yeatter and McGraw sanctuaries, which were searched on 
foot for nests from late June through July, the critical brood-rearing period, were 
noticeably lacking in insects and in evidence of use by broods. The sodbound and 
deteriorated nature of the perennial grasses on these sanctuaries appears to be 
unattractive to broods. Thus, on the portions of each sanctuary not set aside for 
prairie establishment, it seems advisable to try a limited amount of soybean and 
of mowed legume edge for prairie chicken broods. 
6. Rabbit Management J. A. Bailey, J. C. Hanson 
Methods for radio-tracking cottontail rabbits, and some observations of 
activity patterns of seven rabbits and of habitat-use by these rabbits during winter 
nights were reported in the Monthly Wildlife Research Letters for September and 
October, 1966. Observations of the kinds of herbaceous vegetation used by these 
animals are reported here (Table 5)- Each cover type on the study area was 
classified according to the ground-cover conditions described in Table 5- Habitat- 
use by the rabbits was evaluated by plotting observations of radio-indicaced 
locations on a cover map. 
On nights with little or no snow on the ground the animals spent most of their 
time on either mowed or plowed ground (mostly mowed ground: only 4 percent of the 
area had been plowed). A freezing rain on January 12 did not alter this pattern 
of cover-use. However, 68 percent of the study area consisted of plowed or mowed 
ground. Thus, although the rabbits may have preferred mowed or plowed areas, it 
is also possible that they were not responding to this cover type and that their 
movements were essentially random with respect to these areas. 
Only 2 percent of the study area consisted of unmowed grasses. However, on 
nights with no snow or only a trace of snow on the ground, 17 and 11 percent of the 
rabbit-observations, respectively, fell in this cover type, indicating that the 
rabbits were attracted to it. 
On February 1, with 4 inches of snow on the ground, the rabbits were less active 
and remained in areas with dense woody cover (see earlier reports). Herbaceous 
cover in these areas was either unmowed or had been mowed in strips among grape 
arbors. These changes in amount of activity and use of cover on February 1 are the 
most conspicuous features of data reported here and in the two earlier reports. 
Since these rabbits showed no strong preference for dense woody cover during 
r.ignts with little or no snow on the ground, it is possible that good cottontail 
habitat need not contain large amounts of woody cover, at least in southern 
Illinois, where snow does not lie on the ground for long periods. The extensive 
use by the rabbits of areas with open cover (mowed ground with little or no woody 
vegetation), during these nights, suggests that either the animals were attracted 
