26 
FOREST AND STREAM 
January, I9i8 
IN THE HAUNTS OF THE SNOWSHOE RABBIT 
WITH NO FIGHTING ABILITY WORTH MENTIONING AND NO SAFE RETREAT, HE 
IS ABLE TO OUTWIT HIS ENEMIES BY HIS SPEED AND MATCHLESS AGILITY 
% 
By EDWIN 0, PERRIN 
T HE encyclopedia tells us that the snow- 
shoe rabbit is not a rabbit at all, but is 
in reality the varying hare (Lepus 
Americanus). Habitat: Northern United 
States and Canada, The pioneers of the 
North Woods, however, named the long¬ 
eared fellow a rabbit, and rabbit he re¬ 
mains, in spite of natural history. The 
jackrabbit of the plains is also a true hare; 
and several other varieties of American 
game, including the buffalo, the elk, the 
antelope, and the partridge, were misnamed 
by early settlers who mistook them for 
more or less similar species of the old 
world, a very natural error. 
The snowshoe rabbit is larger than the 
cottontail, but smaller than the jackrabbit. 
A full-grown specimen measures about 
nineteen inches from nose to tail, and 
weighs five or six pounds. The hind legs 
are so long that when the animal is fully 
extended he measures some thirty inches 
from tip to tip. His hind feet are very 
large, and covered with such a heavy 
growth of stiff hair that they look like big 
paint brushes. Normally they are not much 
more than an inch wide, but when the toes 
are spread in running they double in width, 
and make tracks as large as those of a big 
dog. This enables the hare to run over 
deep soft snow without sinking in very 
far, and that is why 
he is called a snow- 
shoe rabbit. 
No animal furnishes 
a more striking exam¬ 
ple of protective col¬ 
oring, for in the sum¬ 
mer he is a pale cin¬ 
namon brown, and in 
the winter snow white 
save for a few dark 
hairs on the ears. 
Stories are told in 
the back woods of 
how the rabbit’s fur 
changes color in one 
night, when the first 
snowfall comes, but 
this is of course non¬ 
sense. He simply 
sheds his coat and 
grows a new one 
twice a year, the 
dates being deter¬ 
mined by the tem¬ 
perature. Neverthe¬ 
less it is remarkable how quick and well 
timed the change seems to be. During the 
shedding process the fur sometimes presents 
a curiously mottled appearance. Like most 
fur-bearing animals the snowshoe rabbit has 
two very different kinds of fur, an inner 
layer which is short, dense, and extremely 
soft, and an outer coat of long straight hair. 
It is the latter which gives the animal his 
color, the short fur remaining brown. 
C ommercially rabbit pelts have lit¬ 
tle value, being used mainly for cheap 
linings. The Canadian Indians, how¬ 
ever, make a very light and extremely warm 
blanket by cutting the skins into strips, and 
weaving them loosely together. But it has 
always been a mystery to me how anyone 
could remove a rabbit’s skin without tear¬ 
ing it to pieces. As a friend of mine once 
said, it is like trying to peel the label from 
a medicine bottle. The Indians and trap¬ 
pers capture the hare by setting in his run¬ 
way a snare attached to a bent sapling 
which jerks him high into the air when¬ 
ever the snare is sprung. 
The polar hare of the arctic regions is 
closely allied to the snowshoe rabbit, al¬ 
though it is slightly larger, and remains 
white the year round. Col. David L. Brain- 
ard found the tracks of one of these ani¬ 
mals at 83° 24' N. lat., which for some years 
held the record of the farthest north at¬ 
tained by man. 
The varying hare, unlike the true rabbits, 
never burrows in the ground, but makes his 
home in a shallow nest or form on the sur¬ 
face. Very rarely he takes refuge under a 
stump or in a hollow log, but never remains 
long in such a place, probably fearing to be 
cornered by some enemy. No other crea¬ 
ture of the forest seems so timid and de¬ 
fenceless. With no fighting ability worth 
mentioning, and with no safe retreat, he is 
preyed upon day and night by a host of nat¬ 
ural foes, including foxes, lynxes, skunks, 
weasels, mink, martens, hawks, and owls. 
When seized by an enemy he can sometimes 
shake loose by kicking with his powerful 
hind legs, but his only real safety lies in 
flight. The fact that he is able to survive 
is due entirely to his speed and matchless 
agility which are almost unequalled. 
T HE young of the hare are seldom seen. 
Occasionally a trout fisherman in early 
summer stumbles into a nest of the 
little brown fellows, and sees them scatter 
into the brush like fur-bearing grasshop¬ 
pers. The favorite haunts of the snowshoe 
rabbit are thick evergreen swamps, and 
densely wooded hillsides. He does most of 
his travelling and feeding by night, crouch¬ 
ing all day in a thicket or under a wind¬ 
fall. For this reason the animals are sel¬ 
dom seen by those who are not hunting 
them, even in regions where they are very 
numerous. In fact the only sure way to 
see them is to follow their tracks, and this 
can be done only on snow. I once camped 
for three weeks in August on the edge of a 
swamp which was fairly alive with rabbits, 
without even knowing they were there. 
When I returned to the same place on 
snowshoes I found it cut up in all directions 
by their runways. 
The rabbit's food consists of certain small 
plants and grasses, as well as the leaves, 
buds, and bark of various trees. In winter 
he subsists chiefly on hemlock and other 
evergreens, and he is also fond of the small 
soft buds of the birch. A rabbit will often 
stand upright on his hind legs to reach the 
lower limbs of a tree, and in this position 
he looks very much like a small boy on 
stilts. If the snow is deep he can in this 
manner reach branches which are a good 
many feet above the ground. I once put 
out some toasted cheese to bait a fox, and 
was much surprised the next morning to 
find that it had all been eaten by rabbits. 
Comparatively few hunters realize what 
splendid sport can be 
had in pursuit of the 
snowshoe hare. In 
the dead of winter, 
the most glorious time 
of year to go into the 
big forest, other game 
is out of season, but 
rabbit hunting is at its 
best. The commonest- 
way of hunting hares 
is with dogs, and 
under good conditions 
it is the most success¬ 
ful method. When 
jumped by a hound 
the rabbit never runs 
far without circling, 
and he usually doubles 
over the same track 
several times, so that 
by staying in one 
place the hunter is 
bound to get some 
good shooting. It is 
a shame, however, to 
use a shotgun. Most of the shots are at 
close range, and it requires no skill at all 
with a scattering load to bring the game 
down at the first volley. The man who 
uses a rifle gets more excitement, more 
shooting, and better practice, at the same 
time giving the rabbit a chance. Of course 
it is no easy matter to double up a bounding 
hare with a rifle bullet, but one animal so 
killed affords more satisfaction than a dozen 
riddled with a shotgun. A .22 repeater, 
shooting long-rifle or W. R. F. cartridges 
with hollow-point bullets, is the ideal rabbit 
gun. The .22 automatic would be just the 
thing, were it not for the fact that such 
A typical rabbit swamp in the best hunting season. 
