Jack Rabbits In Southwest Deserts Never Known to Drink

1917

A very curious feature of animal life in the deserts of the Southwest is that rabbits, quail, squirrels, deer, antelope, the mountain sheep and many kinds of reptiles and insects live at great distances from visible water. The jack rabbit is especially notable in this respect; and, moreover, it flourishes in regions without a particle of green food in sight for miles and miles.

Westerners assert that the jack rabbit may be found, happy and fat, spending the day under a scrap of bush that makes little more shade than a fishnet. His skin is as porous as a piece of buckskin, and the heat is sufficient to evaporate every drop of blood in his body, yet he seems to get on very nicely.

Californians aver that no one has even seen a jack rabbit drink. Those who have camped for days in the deserts in vicinities where the only water for miles around was to be found, and with rabbits everywhere, declare that never does one of the little fellows come to the springs to drink. Men have even gone so far as to examine the margins of waterholes in those districts, with never a track of the rabbit disclosed beyond where the grass grew.