

13. Rabbits 
Table M summarizes the information obtdned on fluctuations on 
rabbit populations in Illinois. A particular effort was made to find out 
how harge these fluctuations were and whether they occurred uniformly over 
large regions. Table M shows quite conclusively that in many regions 
they are barely perceptible, that in the most extreme cases they hardly 
exceed 50%, and tmt there is nothing approaching simultaneous shortages 
either throughout the state or throughout large parts of the state. The 
behavior of rabbit populations is such as might be accounted for by 
fluctuations in weather, reinforced by some disease or diseases effecting 
a relatively small proportion of the total population. There is certainly 
nothing to approach the sweeping epidemics characteristic of snowshoe 
rabbits in the north wods, 
The data included.in Table M ought to be of value in the studies 
of wild rabbit diseases about to be undertaken at the University of 
Minnesota, 
A doctor in Lawrenceville is said to have had 5 human tularemia 
cases during the winter of 1927-28 and a few cases in 1928-29, 
One human tularemia case was heard of at Libertyville in Lake 
County in 1928. 
Rabbit hunting privileges are evidently becoming sufficiently 
searce in the chicago region to warrant the leasing of lands for the pur- 
pose, One farmer west of Batavia is said to have leased his rabbit hunt- 
ing to Chicago people, 
The "holing up line", above which rabbits frequent holes in the 
ground after the inception of cold weather, but below which they continue 
5D = 


