Arizona silver belt., 1899-06-08
THE RABBITS OF JERSEY.
ANew York Sportsman Says They
 Are flares
This Heinz the cHae the so-C~lled Rabbit of This Country Hsiongs to tho Same Family Distinguishing Marks
 of the Animal

i tion anything one reads in the 1 Sum-" said New York sportsman, "but
 I think 1t must have printed an item
 the other day on misinformat.on. 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 i'm
 ported stock, What are popularly
 known as rabbits in this country, the
 'cottontails' of the brush patches, dry
 Gwamps, and bushy plains, the little
 gray animal familiar to every school
 boy everywhere, and the pride of his
 youthful trapping and sharing 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 cottontaii with dogs would
 never have been known. If this mis-
 called rabbit had been a subterranean
 dweller, it would have no Funways, it
 would not be flcet-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, it's persistent and crafty
 enemy, and the still mere persistent
 hound the hunter puts upon it's trail.
 For If it were a burrowcr it would, like
 all borrowing animals, be never far
 from home. and would hasten to its
 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 fleet game they have started, and has heard their music fade away as the chase went afar, and, after q long time, heard 1t coming back again, faintly at first, growing louder nnd lor Ter as the distance grew up, nu- till at last the frightened bunny came bounding into sight ahead of it to meet bis fate, can believe that this verile little creature is common, logy bur rowcr? If he has taken to the burrow in southern New Jerscy, to lie there while the water coHes in and drowus him, he is a degenerate.
 ''The rabbit burrows it's home in the ground. The hare fashions its home in punches of tall, dry grass or beneath the shelter of a 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 watrhful 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 its mothers protection when it 1 is six days old. and goes hopping away 1 to see the world on its own account. l l have come upon young hares not much l bigger than rat, which have bounded | away with a briskness go l evidence of | strength and independence equal to | full-grown ones. It is true that our 1 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 hoiloys of stumps and trees. But he is ever an i outdoor dweller, brisk ard alert. Even the great jack rabbit of the far west is not 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 Tn overgrown hare, and no credit to his 'amily.
 If this plentiful small game that 'Sounds in NewJersey lives in burrows. IS alleged, it is the rabbit, sure enough. md it is the first place in this country hat ever heard of where the true wild abbit could be found. Consequently is important, if true."-N. Y. Sun.