re obtained by identifying cottontails that I flushed from
forms as I walked through the study area, sometimes using a
noise-making device or dragging a rope. Regular search was made along
the hilltop rock outcrops, under which hiding cottontails could be
identified with the aid of a flashlight. Forms in brush piles, and
thickets were visited and the inhabitants identified. Other persons,
working on the study area, supplied some of the records of cottontails
that were seen alive or found dead. Also through binoculars or a
telescope I watched movements of undisturbed individuals. Twenty-three
individuals were identified 59 times. Nine females were seen 28 times
and 14 males were seen 31 times. Sixty-five other individuals were
seen, but could not be identified in the field.

MOTIVATION AND EXTENT OF MOVEMENTS

The home range is an area in which an animal carries on its normal
activities of eating, resting, mating, caring for young, and escaping
from predators. The cottontail establishes a definite home range and
may live its entire life within this area, which permits familiarity
with food sources, hiding places, and escape routes.

The cottontail usually establishes its home range in the area where it
was born, being semi-gregarious and tolerant of crowding. Eight
cottontails that were captured and marked as young remained in the area
of original capture after becoming adults. Two of them lived 17 months
in the same area, two lived 14 months, two lived 13 months, one lived
12 months and one lived eight months. No young were observed to have
moved to another home range after they matured, although some may have
moved off the study area and thereby escaped observation.

Young become independent and are seen foraging and moving about by the
time they weigh 200 to 300 grams, at an age of four to six weeks. They
associate with other young of the same litter and neighboring litters,
and frequently frolic together. When two to three months old and
weighing 400 to 700 grams they begin to live a more solitary life and
usually rest alone in forms. Fourteen young between one and six weeks
of age never were recorded to have moved more than 150 feet.

The population reaches its peak in August or September; home ranges
varying in size from one-half acre (in young ranging in size from 150
grams to 800 grams) to 12 acres, in adults, are superimposed upon each
other. In a woodland area of approximately 21 acres 33 cottontails were