Arizona silver belt., 1897-01-07
Arizona Silver Belt
THE RABBITS OF JERSEY.
A New York Sportsman Says They
 Arc flares.
This Being the Csse the ss-Csilsd Rabbit of This Country Bsloogs to the Same Family -Distingulshiag Asrks
 of the AnlaAAL
rather a bold thing to ques-


 tion anything one reads in the Sum-" said a New York sportsman, "but l think it must have printed an item the other day on misinformaton Re lerring to the abundance of si:.ali game in southCrn New Jersey, the item says that the dry season has been favorable to the survival of thousands oi rabbits, which, had the weather been even nom- inally wet, would have been drowned in the burrows, as very mary are every year. Now, if this is true, 1t is iEipor- tant, for it has always been supposed that there were no rabbits native to this country, the only rabbits wc ever see here being the tame ones of the fanciers, which originated from inn ported stock. What arc popularly known as rabbits in this country, the 'cottontails' of the brush patches, dry swamps, and bushy plains, the little gray animal familiar to every school boy everywhere, and the pride of his youthful trapping and snaring forays, are not rabbits at all, but hares. The animal does not burrow or live in bur rows. If it did, the enjoyable sport of chasing the cottontail with dogs would never have been known. If this mis- called rabbit had been a subterranean dweller, it would have no runways, it would not be 1eet-footed as the wind, it would not be as fertile in resources as it is and as it has to be to escape the pursuing fox, its persistent and crafty enemy, and the still more persistent hound the hunter puts upon it's trail. For if it were burrower it would, like all burrowing animals, be never far from home, and would hasten to its underground refuge and disappear a, the first sound or sight of danger.
 "Who, with memories of collaborating November mornings, when he has stood on runway waiting for the hounds to fetch round to him the fleet game they have started, and has heard their music fade away as the chase went afar, and, after long time, heard it coming back again, faintly at first, growing louder aud lor Ter as the distance grew up, nu- till at last the frightened bunny came bounding into sight ahead of it to meet his fate, can believe that this verile little creature is q common, logy bur rower? If he has taken to the burrow in southern New Jersey, to lie there while the water comes in and drowns him, he is degenerate.
 ''The rabbit burrows its home in the ground. The hare fashions its home in punches of tall, dry grass or beneath the shelter of thick bush, and its nest is called its form The rabbits young are born with their eyes closed. like puppies. The eyes of the hare's little ones are wide open the moment they are born, and bright and watchful eyes they are. The rabbits young require a mothers care for nearly month be- fore they are able to care for them- selves, six days of which time they are helpless and blind. The young hare scorns it's mothers protection when it is six days old, and goes hopping away to see the world on it's own account. 1 have come upon young harcs not much bigger than a rat, which have bounded away with briskness asd evidence of strength and independence equal to full-gTown ones. It is true that our miscalled native rabbit will frequently seek the burrow of woodchuCk or other hole in the ground when hard pressed, with the same instinct for safe ty that prompts him to creep under brush piles and nestle there, or into the depths of stone walls or the hollows of stumps and trees. But he is ever an outdoor dwcller, brisk and alert. Even the great jack rabbit of the far west is not a rabbit. If he were there could not Lc the periodical round-ups which the people afflicted by the presence of this pestifcrous animal make of his kind to slaughter them by thousands, for then he would live in burrows, to which he would naturally betake him. self in time of danger, and no corral could cnsue. The jacl; rabbit is simply an overgrown hare, and no credit to his family.
 "if this plentiful small game that abounds in NewJerscy lives in burrows. as alleged, it is the rabbit, sure enough, and it is the first place in this country that ever heard of where the true wild rabbit could be found. Consequently it is important, if true."-N. Y. Sun.