The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1898-01-01
THE RABBITS OF JERSEY.
A New York sports1nan Says They
Are Harea.
This Bean6 tho Caee the SO-Caned Rabbit
ef This CoantFy Belongs to the Same
neutrality-suspicious. Marks
Of the Animal

Of the Animal
ut is rather bold thing to ques-
tion anything one reads in the
SUM-" said New York sportsman, but
I think it must have printed an item
the other day on misinformation. RE
ferring to the abundance of small game
in southern New Jersey, the item says
that the dry season has been favorable
to the survival OF thousands of rabbits,
which, had the weather been even NOM
inally wet, would have been drowned
in the burrows, as very many are every
year. Now, if this is true, it is impor-
tant, for it has always been supposed
that there were no rabbits native to
this country, the only rabbits we ever
see here being the tame ones of the
fanciers, which originated from inn
ported stock. What are popularity
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 subterranean
dweller, it would have no runways, it
would not be feet-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 turnover it would, like
all burrowing animals, be never far
from home. and would hasten to it's
underground refuge and disappear at
the first sound or sight of danger.
'Who, with memories of exhilerating
November mornings, when he has stood
on runway waiting for the hounds to
fetch round to him the feet 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, family at first, growing louder
and LOT der 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 common, logy bur-
rover? If he has taken to the burrow
in southern New Jersey, to lie there
while the water comes in and browns
him, he is degenerate.
''The rabbit burrows it's home in the
ground. The hare fashions it's home in
punches of tall, dry grass or beneath
the shelter of thick bush, and it's nest
is called it's 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 a 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. I
have come upon young hares not much
bigger than a rat, which have bounded
away with briskness aid evidence of
strength and independence equal to
full-Rrown ones. It is true that our
miscalled native rabbit will frequently
seek the burrow of a 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 dweller, brisk and alert. Even
the great jack rabbit of the far west
In not q rabbit. If he were there could
not be the periodical round-ups which
the people afflicted by the presence of
this pestiferous 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 ensue The jack rabbit is simply
an overgrown hare, and no credit to his
family.
IF this plentiful small game that
abounds in New Jersey lives in burrows,
ss alleged. it ID the rabbit, sure enough,
and It is the first place in this country
that l ever heard of where the true wild
rabbit could be found. Consequently
it il important, If true.-N. Y. Sun.