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 to determine the size of home range are shown in the lower part of Figure 3. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS The home range and movements of the cottontail were studied on a 90-acre area of the University of Kansas Natural History Reservation from February, 1954, to March, 1956. Eighty-nine cottontails were identified in the field 59 times, trailed 70 times and captured in live-traps 326 times in 7,850 trap nights. Home range of the cottontail was calculated by five methods, using the same set of data, and the results were compared. A composite method was used, which permitted the use of more data than any other one method. The maintenance of a home range is of survival value to the cottontail. Knowledge of the home range is of value to man when control or propagation of cottontail populations is desired. Cottontails establish a home range where they are born and enlarge it to nearly full size the first winter. Home ranges of cottontails are overlapped by those of others regardless of sex or age. No territory is maintained. The cottontail makes movements to forage, to seek cover from predators and the weather, to reproduce, build nests, care for young, keep pace with changes in vegetation through the year, and escape unusually severe climatic conditions. Movements may be caused by desire for acquaintance with surroundings and other animals, escape from undesirable surroundings or animals, or merely release of nervous energy.