Cottontail rabbits eat all sorts of herbage--leaves, stems, flowers, and seeds of herbaceous plants and grasses--and leaves, buds, bark, and fruits of woody plants or trees. They usually prefer the most succulent foods, as young shoots, tender garden vegetables, clover, alfalfa, and fallen ripe fruits; but they exhibit also a remarkable delicacy of taste in their selection of certain varieties of cultivated plants and in their neglect of others of the same species. Prof. C. V. Piper reports that in Oregon rabbits ate Arabian alfalfa down to the ground, while they did little or no damage to other varieties grown in surrounding plats. Prof. C. A. Mooers, of the Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station, reports similar observations in regard to their taste for soy beans, stating that they greatly relish the mammoth yellow variety and that it is practically the only one that suffers from their depredations. When favorite foods are absent rabbits resort to whatever is available. It is during summer droughts or when deep snows cut off ordinary supplies that the animals attack the bark of growing trees or shrubs. [Illustration Fig. 1.--Cottontail rabbit in its "form."] PROTECTION OF RABBITS. Cottontail rabbits are valuable for food and afford excellent sport for gunners. In many States, especially east of the Mississippi River, they are protected as game. In fruit-growing and truck-farming districts farmers regard them with disfavor, and there is considerable rivalry between sportsmen and farmers to have their opposing views reflected in game laws. The interests of the two classes do not seriously differ, however, for when rabbits are closely hunted losses from their depredations are usually reduced to a minimum. Still there is danger that in years favorable for their increase the animals may inflict serious injury to trees during severe winters. Rabbits are protected (1915) by close seasons in States and Provinces as shown in Table I. Twenty-eight States, Alaska, and the Canadian Provinces not mentioned in the table do not protect rabbits of any kind. In the District of Columbia all shooting is prohibited except on certain river marshes. In Kentucky rabbits may be taken with dog, trap, or snare at any time, and the close season for shooting is evidently solely for the purpose of keeping gunners out of fields and woods during the two months immediately preceding the open season for quails. In Wisconsin 46 counties, mostly in the southern half of the State, have no close season for rabbits. In California only cottontails, or bush rabbits, are protected. [Illustration Fig. 2.--Apple tree killed by rabbits.] TABLE I.--_Lengths of open season for rabbits or hares._