er cent) home
range than females probably because of the increased activity of males
in the breeding season and the decreased activity of females when
pregnant and caring for young. Nevertheless, some of the largest home
ranges measured were those of females.

[Illustration: FIG 3. Diagrams showing home ranges of cottontails in
relation to woodland and open fields on the study area. One inch equals
approximately 545 feet. Each home range is shown slightly rounded from
the polygonal figures obtained by connecting actual points where the
animal was recorded. _Upper._ Winter range of 7.9 acres (solid line)
increased to 9.5 acres in summer by area in dashed line. _Lower._
Overlapping home ranges of four of the many cottontails living on the
study area. Each of the four cottontails occupied approximately the
same home range throughout the year.]

The size of the home range in immature cottontails varies between 0.1
acre and 4.0 acres, depending on the age and size of the individual.
Fourteen young cottontails between three and six weeks of age did not
leave areas of approximately one acre in each instance. Nine
cottontails between six weeks and 18 weeks of age lived in areas of
about two acres. By the time cottontails are four to five months old
they inhabit a home range of four to eight acres.

One cottontail (Figure 2, lower left) born in July, 1954, was estimated
to have wandered over approximately 0.25 acre at an age of three weeks.
In September this cottontail occupied a home range of one and one-half
acres. By December it was five months old and occupied an area of about
eight acres. In the next year it enlarged its home range to 11.5 acres.

The cottontail usually settles down in one area and stays there until
it dies. Changes from one home range to another are unusual, but minor
shifts, in response to changes in vegetation and weather, are common.
In one exceptional instance (Figure 2, right) a male cottontail,
occupying a home range of 11.2 acres in a woodland, suddenly shifted to
a new area that barely overlapped its former home range at one edge.
Two months after the change was first noticed the cottontail was living
in a new home range of 6.6 acres 300 feet from its original home range.
In changing from one home range to the other the cottontail traveled
along a dry stream bed and was captured there three times.

Maps of the home ranges of four of those 18 cottontails for which
sufficient data were collected