living together in September, 1955.

As the growing season ends and winter approaches, the amount of food
available to the cottontail decreases and the cover becomes sparser
(Pls. 45 and 46); predators, disease, and weather take their toll of
the young. The survivors must move farther to find adequate food and
cover. The home range of the cottontail in the first winter is
overlapped by the home ranges of the other members of the same litter,
and members of other litters, as the home range is enlarged to
approximately its full size. By April the population reached its annual
low point; nine of the original 33 cottontails were known to have
survived on the 21-acre area of northwest-facing wooded slope south of
the pond.

Foremost among the needs of the cottontail are food and cover. Daily
movements motivated by these needs are the most frequent and most
extensive that it makes. Movements such as are associated with courting
and mating, escaping severe weather, escaping from predators, and
caring for young are seasonal or irregular in occurrence.

Because the abundant vegetation of summer provides adequate food and
cover, movements made while foraging and seeking concealment are less
extensive than those made in winter when leafy vegetation is absent and
food is scarce. The average length of trails of foraging cottontails
was 175 feet per day in summer (11 individuals observed without
disturbance) and 325 feet per day in winter (22 individuals trailed or
observed without disturbance).

In the spring and summer cottontails forage mostly near woodland edges
for grass and herbs, and usually wander no more than 40 feet into the
grasslands from the protection of woodland edges and thickets. In
autumn and winter cottontails forage in woods and along woodland edges
for bark of trees and shrubs and for fallen fruits of trees. Ninety-two
per cent of all fecal pellets found in grassland were within 40 feet of
cover suitable for cottontails.

Movements made by the cottontail while foraging appear aimless; typical
behavior consists of progression with a hesitant gait of two or three
hops, a stop to eat, another series of hops and another stop.
Footprints made by this movement are about 12 inches apart. With
occasional spurts of hopping the individual moves perhaps ten to twelve
feet where it stops and begins to eat again. The area in which the
individual forages is usually elongated with its long axis parallel to
the edge exce