Part 14

From the early settlement of the United States to the present day cottontails have been so abundant that they have served as a valuable source of our game food supply. They are hunted with guns and with dogs, as well as being snared and trapped. Enormous numbers, running into the millions, are killed in this country yearly, but they are so prolific that they hold their own in a surprising degree.

Their abundance in many places, however, has made them a serious pest to agriculture. They eat growing alfalfa and other forage plants, many kinds of cultivated vegetables, young grape vines, and nursery stock and even kill orchard trees by gnawing the bark from the base of the trunks. As a result those who suffer from their depredations consider them pests to be destroyed, while others look upon them as desirable game animals to be protected by law.

As game animals the cottontails furnish some of the most delightful and interesting sport available to American hunters. The scurrying zigzag rush of a cottontail for the nearest shelter is so full of energetic motion that it always excites a pleasurable thrill in the observer, and even the keenest sportsman has so friendly a feeling for these little animals that the escape of one of them from an unsuccessful shot nearly always leaves a feeling of humorous amusement.

The cottontails have a secure place in American literature and folklore. Who has not read the wonder stories of the adventures of “Brer Rabbit” and ever after had a warmer feeling of fellowship for his kind? The presence of cottontails is a source of pleasure to children of all ages, and their disappearance from the wild life of a locality creates a more deeply felt blank than would the passing of many a nobler animal.

=THE MARSH RABBIT= (=Sylvilagus palustris= and its relatives)

(_For illustration, see page 511_)

The marsh rabbit, or “pontoon,” as it is known in Georgia, is a distinctively American species allied to the cottontails, but distinguished from them by its more heavily proportioned body, smaller ears, shorter and slenderer legs and feet, and shorter, nearly unicolored tail. Its only close relative in the United States is the swamp rabbit, known in Alabama as the “cane-cutter.”

These two species appear to be members of a Tropical American group of which other members are the wood rabbits of Mexico, Central and South America. The distribution of the group was probably at one time continuous, but a change to arid conditions in northeastern Mexico and Texas isolated the two species remaining in this country.

The distribution of the marsh rabbit is limited to the southeastern coastal States from Dismal Swamp, Virginia, to Mobile Bay, Alabama. It is common in suitable places in Florida. Its larger relative, the swamp rabbit, ranges west from this area to Texas and up the Mississippi Valley to Illinois and southeastern Kansas. Swamp rabbits are numerous in the low, wooded coastal region of Louisiana. They are larger and longer-legged than marsh rabbits and fleeter of foot.

Among all the rabbits of the world the marsh and swamp rabbits are the only species which have aquatic habits. Both live mainly in marshes, wooded swamps, and along the low wooded courses of streams. Other rabbits and hares are occasionally known to cross water by swimming, but the marsh and swamp rabbits live about the water and take to it with all the freedom of a muskrat or mink. The marsh rabbit appears to be the more aquatic of the two, as the swamp rabbit sometimes lives in the forest, farther back from the water.

The Tropical wood rabbits are habitants of the dense forests, where they are well hidden under the rank undergrowth. They are not known to enter the water, but, like their northern relatives, make runways through the dense vegetation they frequent. The marsh rabbits live in cypress or other fresh-water swamps, heavily wooded bottoms, and fresh water, as well as brackish marshes. They feed on a variety of vegetation growing in such places and dig up such edible roots as the wild potato and amaryllis.

Both marsh and swamp rabbits have several litters of from two to six young each season, beginning in April. The young are born in large, well-made covered nests, which are built of rushes, grasses, and leaves and lined with hair from the parents. The nests, which have an entrance on one side, are usually located in the midst of dense growths of vegetation or on tussocks, in low, swampy places, and are sometimes surrounded by water. In the most frequented parts of marsh and swamp these rabbits make well-trodden trails through the dense vegetation.

When alarmed, marsh rabbits run for the nearest water, into which they plunge and swim quickly to the shelter of aquatic plants or other cover. When cut off from escape by water they try to avoid capture by doubling and turning, but are so short-legged that they are readily overtaken by a dog. The tracks of these rabbits in the mud differ from those of the cottontails in showing imprints of the spreading toes.

In South Carolina Bachman once found numerous marsh rabbits in the thickets about recently flooded rice fields and swamps. When he beat the bushes the rabbits plunged into the water and swam away so rapidly that some escaped from a Newfoundland dog which accompanied him. Several, apparently thinking themselves unnoticed, stopped and remained motionless about fifteen yards from the shore, with only their eyes and noses showing above water. Thus concealed in the muddy water, with ears laid flat on their necks, they were difficult to see. When touched with a stick they appeared unwilling to move until they saw that they were discovered, when they quickly swam away.

Later, when the water subsided to its regular channels, where it was about eight feet deep, many of the rabbits were seen swimming about, meeting and pursuing one another as if in sport. One which Bachman had in captivity during warm weather would lie for hours in a trough partly filled with water, with which the cage was furnished.

=THE PIKA, OR CONY= (=Ochotona princeps= and its relatives)

(_For illustration, see page 511_)

The pika, little chief hare, or cony, as it is variously named, is among the most attractive and interesting of our mountain animals. It is about the size and shape of a small guinea-pig, with a short, blunt head, broad, rounded ears, short legs, practically no tail, and a long, fluffy coat of fur. While most nearly related to the hares and rabbits, it has very different habits.

The pikas form a group comprising many species, much alike in general appearance and distributed among the high mountains, from the Urals of Russia through Asia and northern North America. In Asia they occur mainly in the mountains through the middle of the continent south to the Himalayas. In Pleistocene time they ranged across Europe to England. In North America they are limited to the western side of the continent, from the Mount McKinley region of Alaska down the Rocky Mountains to New Mexico and along the Cascades and Sierra Nevada to the Mount Whitney region, in California.

Giving to these North American animals the appellation “cony” is one of many instances in which the name of an Old World animal is brought to America to designate a totally unrelated species. Once fixed in current use, the misapplied term is certain to persist.

Pikas are among the few mammals which live permanently along the high crests of the mountains, mainly above timberline, but they also descend in rock slides among the upper spruces, firs, and pines. The altitude of their haunts varies with the latitude, being between 8,000 and 13,500 feet in the United States, but in Alaska much lower.

In these cool, alpine regions the little animals live wholly within the shelter of rock slides and among the crevices of shattered rock masses. Their distribution is unaccountably broken, and although abundant in many places, they are absent from many others equally suitable. Their homes are in the midst of the flower-bedecked glacial valleys and basins, the haunts of the big marmots and mountain sheep.

They are mainly diurnal in habits, and throughout the day may be heard their odd little barking, or bleating note, like the syllables “eh-eh” repeated at intervals in a nasal tone, resembling the sound made by squeezing a toy dog. Occasionally they may be heard barking at night, perhaps when disturbed by some prowling enemy. Their notes have a curiously ventriloquial quality, which renders it difficult to locate the animals uttering them.

Owing to their dull gray or brownish colors, the pikas blend with their background so completely that when quietly sitting on a rock they are extremely difficult to see. Even when running about at a little distance they are not easily noted. Their movements are quick and they scamper over the rough surface of a rock slide with surprising agility.

Little is known of their more intimate life history. Their young, three or four in number, are born usually during the first half of summer and are out foraging when less than half-grown.

Small, bright eyes and big, rounded ears give pikas an odd and attractive appearance, unlike that of any other mountain animal. They are extremely watchful and at the first alarm disappear in the shelter of their rocky fortresses. Their little bark, however, continues to come up from their hiding places with constant iteration. If the observer will sit quietly at some good vantage point his patience will eventually be rewarded by the appearance of the pika on the top of a stone near the mouth of its retreat.

After a time, if everything is quiet, it resumes its scampering about over the rocks or may come to the border of the slide and make little excursions across the open ground after some of its forage plants. Skipping nimbly from the border of the slides to neighboring patches of vegetation, sometimes fifty or more feet away, the pika nips off the stems of short grasses or other plants and taking them up, like small bundles, crosswise in its mouth, runs back to add them to its “stacks.” These sallies are quick little runs, made as though in fear of being long away from the safety of the rocks. Caution is needful, however, in a world where lurk such enemies as coyotes, lynxes, foxes, weasels, hawks, and owls.

During late summer the pikas have the extraordinary habit of gathering stores of small herbage in piles containing sometimes a bushel each, usually well sheltered in dry places under the rocks where they live. Pikas are active all winter, and these little stacks of well-cured hay, containing a great variety of small plants, serve them as food during the severe cold season, when at these high altitudes they are buried under many feet of snow.

In pleasant weather, near the end of summer, visitors to the mountains of Colorado, Glacier National Park, the high slopes of Mount Shasta, or of the Sierra Nevada may have the pleasure of watching the pikas hard at work doing their “haying.” One of their “stacks” in the mountains of New Mexico contained thirty-four kinds of plants, including many flowers. No one who once becomes acquainted with these unique and gentle little animals will ever cease to remember them with friendly interest.

=THE PORCUPINE= (=Erethizon dorsatum= and its relatives)

(_For illustration, see page 514_)

The porcupine is one of the most grotesque of the smaller North American mammals. With a weight of from fifteen to twenty pounds, its heavy body is supported on short legs, the feet resting flat on the ground like those of the raccoon, instead of on the toes, as in most small animals.

Its strongest peculiarity is the specialized development of most of the fur into rigid, sharp-pointed spines or “quills” from half an inch to over three inches in length. That the spines represent the underfur of ordinary mammals is evident from the fact that they are overlaid by long, coarse guard hairs, sometimes several times their length.

The spiny armament usually lies flat on the body, but when the animal is excited or alarmed it may be raised, by special muscles on the underside of the skin, into a bristling array of barbed points. The spines are so slightly attached that when their points enter the skin of an enemy they at once become free at the base. The points firmly set in the skin of another animal, the spines can be withdrawn only with considerable effort, and if left will gradually work deeper and may traverse a considerable part of the victim’s body before finally becoming encysted.

When assailed the porcupine turns down its head, arches its back, and, on firmly planted feet with all its spines erected into a bristling cover, awaits the enemy. The instant its body is touched the club-shaped tail, armed with a multitude of spines, is swung vigorously around and the animal so incautious as to receive the blow is pierced by a host of stinging darts which, freed from the porcupine, remain to torment the aggressor. This swift and effective sweep of the tail has probably given rise to the idea that the porcupine can “shoot” its quills when defending itself.

Despite its defensive powers, however, the porcupine is, on occasion, successfully attacked by various enemies, including the mountain lion, bobcat, fisher, and even the eagle and great horned owl. The fisher is said habitually to kill and feed upon them, and the encysted quills are commonly found under its skin.

The frightful effect of an ill-judged attack on a porcupine is shown by inexperienced dogs after their first encounter with this strange beast. That such an attack is a dangerous venture, even by the craftiest and most powerful of its enemies, is well demonstrated by occasional fatalities among large carnivores which result from the great mass of spines imbedded in their heads and bodies.

The North American porcupine is a northern animal belonging mainly to coniferous forests, and ranges from sea level to timberline. It originally occupied nearly all the forested parts of the continent south to West Virginia, southern Illinois, the Davis Mountains of western Texas, and the southern end of the Sierra Nevada in California, but was absent from the Southeastern States and the lower Mississippi Valley.

While characteristically a woodland animal, at times it wanders from forest shelters and has been found prowling about above timberline on high mountains, and among alder thickets beyond the limit of trees in the far North. They are usually silent, but at times utter a curious squealing cry, and in addition have a variety of snuffing, growling, and chattering noises.

In the forests of tropical America, from Mexico to Brazil, other and shorter-quilled porcupines occur, characterized by smaller size and slenderer bodies with a long tail, the terminal half of which is naked and prehensile like that of an opossum. These animals inhabit forests where no conifers grow, and are much more arboreal in habits than their northern relatives. Still other and even more strikingly different porcupines occur in Europe, Asia, and Africa, some of the African animals having heavy spines more than twelve inches long.

All porcupines are true rodents, and the name hedgehog is erroneously used when applied to any of them. Hedgehogs are small Old World insect-eating mammals, which have their backs covered with porcupine-like spines, but are in no way related to the porcupines.

The American porcupines are mainly nocturnal, although they sometimes wander about by day. While largely arboreal in habits, they pass much of their time on the ground and commonly have their dens in caves at the bases of cliffs, under the shelter of large rocks, logs, piles of brush, or in hollows at the bases of trees. They are sluggish, stupid animals, with poor sight, and are unable to move rapidly, either in a tree or on the ground.

Although on the ground they are extremely deliberate, in the treetops they are even more sluggish and can be compared only with the sloth. In consequence they are practically helpless in the presence of an enemy except for the defense afforded by their spiny armor. That in most cases this is effective is evidenced by their continued presence throughout a large part of their original range where forests still exist.

Porcupines are solitary animals, totally devoid of any qualities of good fellowship with their kind, but the attraction of woodland camps often brings a number together. They are exceedingly fond of salt and persistently return to camps to gnaw logs, boards, or any other object having a salty flavor.

They appear to be practically omnivorous so far as vegetable matter is concerned and feed upon the bark and twigs of spruces, hemlocks, several species of pines, cottonwoods, alders, and other trees and bushes. In orchards and gardens near their haunts they eat apples, turnips, and other fruits and vegetables and visit the shores of ponds for waterlily pads and other aquatic plants growing within reach.

Ordinarily they eat patches of bark from the tree trunks, but sometimes girdle the tree or at times denude the entire trunk. They often remain for weeks in the top of a single tree, even in the severest winter weather. I had a practical illustration of this on one occasion when stormbound in a fur trader’s cabin at the head of Norton Bay, on the north coast of Bering Sea, where a belt of spruces reached down from the interior. We were short of meat, and when one of the Eskimos reported that some time before he had seen a porcupine in a spruce tree he was sent to look for it. A few hours later he returned bringing the game, having found it in the very same tree where he had seen it many days before, although we had just experienced a period of severe weather, with temperatures well under 40 degrees Fahrenheit below zero. It was on this occasion that I first learned the palatable qualities of porcupine flesh.

Little is known definitely concerning the family life of these animals. The young, from one to four in number, are amazingly large at birth and appear fully armed with spines. Even before they are half grown they adopt the solitary habit of the adults and wander forth to care for themselves.

Porcupine’s have an intimate connection with the romantic side of early Indian life in eastern America. Their white quills were colored in bright hues by vegetable dyes known to the Indians and served to make beautiful embroidery on belts, moccasins, and other articles of aboriginal clothing until primitive art gave way to the more tawdry effects of trade goods.

=THE JUMPING MOUSE= (=Zapus hudsonius= and its relatives)

(_For illustration, see page 514_)

In several ways the jumping mouse is unique among American mammals. Its strongest characteristics are a dull, rusty yellowish color, a slender body about three inches long, a remarkably slender tail about five inches in length, and long hind legs and feet, which are specially developed for jumping, like those of a little kangaroo. In addition it is provided with cheek pouches, one on each side of the mouth, in which it gathers food to be carried to its hidden stores.

The long tail serves as a balance during its extraordinary leaps, some of which in a single bound cover a distance of about ten feet. If by accident one of these animals loses its tail, whenever it jumps it is thrown into a series of somersaults, turning helplessly over and over in the air.

The jumping mice form a small group of species and geographic races closely similar in general appearance. They are the sole representatives in North America of the Old World jerboas and are themselves represented elsewhere by a single species occurring in the interior of China. The jerboa family contains in addition many larger and curiously diverse species distributed over a large part of Asia, Africa, and southern Europe. Many Old World jerboas are desert animals, some of them exact reproductions in shape and color of the kangaroo rats of arid regions in the Western and Southwestern States and Mexico, although they are in no way related to those animals.

Jumping mice are distributed over most of the northern parts of North America from the Atlantic coast of Labrador to the Bering Sea coast of Alaska, and southward to North Carolina, Illinois, New Mexico, and California. They are nocturnal in habits and live in or near the borders of forests, in thickets of weeds or brushwood, and in meadows adjoining woodland areas or forest lakes. In prairie country they occupy belts of woody growth bordering streams. In congenial locations they range from sea level up to an altitude of 8,000 feet or more.

For winter homes they dig burrows two or three feet deep, in the lower parts of which they excavate oval chambers and fill them with fine grass and other soft material to make a warm nest. Other chambers opening from these burrows serve as store-rooms for berries, seeds, and nuts of various kinds, among which beechnuts are a favorite.

The nests occupied as summer homes are placed in shallow burrows a few inches below the surface of the ground, or they may be in a hollow tree, under a piece of bark, in a dense tussock of grass, or in other makeshift shelter. In these nests the young, varying from two to eight in number, are born at varying times between May and September, indicating the probability that more than one litter is produced each season.

When suddenly startled from her nest the female often flees with several of the young clinging to her teats. She runs swiftly through the grass, and if hard pressed will take a long leap, still carrying the pendant young. It is surprising that such delicately formed animals can make long leaps in thickly grown places and apparently land safely, especially when carrying their young. In the flights of the mother some of the young must be jarred loose, but when the alarm is over no doubt she returns to find and rescue any that may be missing.

In the northeastern States jumping mice are common habitants of meadows. They are equally at home in the rocky meadows of New England, on the flower-spangled borders of rushing trout streams in the Sierra Nevada of California, and the boggy glades of subarctic Alaska.

My first acquaintance with them was made many years ago, during haying time, in northern New York. Hidden under a haycock, as the last forkful was raised one of them was often revealed, and its startling leaps always resulted in an exciting chase, which usually ended in the escape of the strange little beast.

Unlike most of their small fellows of meadow and thicket, jumping mice regularly hibernate, occupying the nests near the bottoms of the winter burrows. They usually become fat on the abundance of food at the end of summer, and in September or October, with the approach of cool weather, enter their winter quarters and sink into the long, hibernating lethargy. Sometimes two of them are found hibernating in the same nest.

During hibernation they are coiled up in little furry balls, the nose resting on the abdomen, the hind feet on each side of the head, and the tail wound around the body. The winter sleep usually lasts until spring, but may be broken at any time by mild weather.

When hibernating the mice appear cold and lifeless, but if one is carried into a warm house or even held a long time in the captor’s hands it will slowly awaken and may become as lively as in summer. When returned to a low temperature, however, it soon resumes its mysterious seasonal sleep.

=THE SILKY POCKET MICE= (=Perognathus flavus= and its relatives)

(_For illustration, see page 515_)