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Cottontail — Part 2
Images coming soon.
Like the other members of its race it often endeavours to escape notice by crouching motionless wherever it may happen to be, often allowing itself to be all but taken before it will move, and at such times no amount of being stared at will frighten it or put it out of countenance. There it will sit perfectly motionless except for the trembling of its whiskers and the motion of its breathing until you seem to be just on the point of grasping it, when it quietly slips from beneath your hands and races away.
I have seen one sitting in plain sight on the snow among the scattered sumachs not ten yards from a path along which loads of hay were being hauled from the salt marsh to the upland. Five or six teams must have passed it, some of them followed by dogs, and still it sat there undisturbed in the sunlight, apparently absorbed in its own thoughts.
The young ones, four or five inches long, are often met with in summer all alone beneath the ferns and brambles and very serious and reserved little chaps they are, too, with their great black eyes and absurd looking triangular mouths forever in motion, as if repeating over and over to themselves some lesson which they fear they may forget.
Varieties of the Cottontail
1. Common or Southern Cottontail. Lepus floridanus mallurus (Thomas). Range and description as above.
2. Florida Cottontail. Lepus floridanus Allen. Darker all over, with no conspicuous black edgings to the ears nor black spot between them.
3. Northern Cottontail. Lepus floridanus transitionalis (Bangs). More richly coloured than the southern cottontail, with many long black hairs scattered over the back, black borders to ears and spot between them very distinct.
4. Prairie Cottontail. Lepus floridanus mearnsi (Allen). Much lighter than any of the preceding, especially on the rump, ears light, without black edgings, and no spot between them. Size rather larger.