ng
the anterior and posterior parts of a molariform tooth.

The brush rabbit is a Pacific Coastal species; as may be seen from
figure 9 on the next page, this species occurs from the Columbia River
on the north to the tip of Baja California on the south. Nowhere, so far
as I can learn, does it occur as far east as the crest of the
Cascade-Sierra Nevada Mountain Chain. Throughout its range the brush
rabbit is closely associated with--in fact, lives in--the chaparral that
is dense enough to afford protection from raptorial birds and the larger
carnivorous mammals. The rabbit's reliance on protective cover is so
great that, as pointed out on an earlier page, a person can turn this
trait to advantage in protecting cultivated crops from inroads that the
rabbits might make on them. The protection is afforded by clearing the
brush from a strip forty-five feet wide so that the cleared strip
intervenes between the cultivated crops and the brushy shelter. The
rabbits will not risk crossing the open strip and hence do not reach the
growing crops.

[Illustration: FIG. 9. Distribution of _Sylvilagus bachmani_ and
_Sylvilagus mansuetus_.

1. _S. b. ubericolor_
2. _S. b. tehamae_
3. _S. b. macrorhinus_
4. _S. b. riparius_
5. _S. b. mariposae_
6. _S. b. bachmani_
7. _S. b. virgulti_
8. _S. b. cinerascens_
9. _S. b. rosaphagus_
10. _S. b. howelli_
11. _S. b. exiguus_
12. _S. b. peninsularis_
13. _S. b. cerrosensis_
14. _S. mansuetus_ ]

Brush rabbits use simple "forms" in the brush for resting. Only one
observer (Orr, 1940: 173) has reported an individual entering a hole. In
patches of chaparral in which the rabbits live they make runways that
are especially well defined at the edges of the brush. The outer
entrance to a runway is tunnellike and one to two feet from the outer
entrance there is a special form that serves as a lookout post. A brush
rabbit that is about to venture into the open ordinarily pauses in such
a form for several minutes, presumably to satisfy itself that no enemy
is in the open area whither the rabbit is bound.

The breeding season is from January to June, at least in California.
There are 2 to 5 young, averaging 3.5 per litter. They are born in a
nest.

SYLVILAGUS BACHMANI BACHMANI (Waterhouse).

1839. _Lepus bachmani_ Waterhouse, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, Pt. 6
(for 1838):103, February 7, type from California, probably between
Monterey and Santa Barba