File:Birds and nature (1899) (14747681554).jpg

Identifier: birdsnature531899chic (find matches)
Title: Birds and nature
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Birds Natural history
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : A.W. Mumford, Publisher
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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ting, an emer-gency enabling him to escape someenemies—as a weasel or mink, perhaps—which may chase him around in thetrees. The arrangement of the long hairs,projecting out sidewise on the bone, isstrikingly like that of the feathers onthe tail of the very earliest reptile-likebirds which had long bony tails, useddoubtless as the squirels, since theywere down-sailers rather than up-flut-terers—if I may be allowed to so com-pound my words and ideas. Someother downward-leaping mammalshave the hairs similarly arranged. An-other rodent, the anomalure, whichflies down, as a flying-squirrel, by thinmembranes, has special horny scaleson the under side of its tail either toassist in climbing or to resist slippingdown when a tree trunk is grasped. The squirrels tail, therefore, is a fac-tor of his safety, as well as a feature ofhis ornamentation. Another use which he makes of it isthat when he lies down to pleasantdreams it forms the drapery of hiscouch—a coverlid for his head andbody.
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THE NORTHERN PRAIRIE HARE. THIS is the most northern speciesof the group of hares (Leptiscampestris), familiarly known inthe United States as jack rab-bits because of their large size andenormous ears. They are lively ani-mals of astounding jumping powers.In America there is no such distinctionbetween the term hare and rabbitas there is in Europe, where the large,long-eared, stout varieties, living inshallow forms, are named hares, andthe smaller and more slender kind,which digs a deep burrow, is the rab-bit. In this country the authoritiessay that no well-defined distinctionexists. Of the so-called jack rabbitsthe northern prairie hare here depictedmay be taken as the type. It is one ofthe largest species of hares, measuringabout twenty inches in length, and ithas long, strong, and vigorous limbs,and such remarkably long ears that thepopular name it bears is fully justified.This northern species is found onthe western prairies from BritishAmerica to Colorado. It undergoes awinter cha

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