In South Carolina Bachman once found numerous marsh rabbits in the thickets about recently flooded rice fields and swamps. When he beat the bushes the rabbits plunged into the water and swam away so rapidly that some escaped from a Newfoundland dog which accompanied him. Several, apparently thinking themselves unnoticed, stopped and remained motionless about fifteen yards from the shore, with only their eyes and noses showing above water. Thus concealed in the muddy water, with ears laid flat on their necks, they were difficult to see. When touched with a stick they appeared unwilling to move until they saw that they were discovered, when they quickly swam away. Later, when the water subsided to its regular channels, where it was about eight feet deep, many of the rabbits were seen swimming about, meeting and pursuing one another as if in sport. One which Bachman had in captivity during warm weather would lie for hours in a trough partly filled with water, with which the cage was furnished. =THE PIKA, OR CONY= (=Ochotona princeps= and its relatives) (_For illustration, see page 511_) The pika, little chief hare, or cony, as it is variously named, is among the most attractive and interesting of our mountain animals. It is about the size and shape of a small guinea-pig, with a short, blunt head, broad, rounded ears, short legs, practically no tail, and a long, fluffy coat of fur. While most nearly related to the hares and rabbits, it has very different habits. The pikas form a group comprising many species, much alike in general appearance and distributed among the high mountains, from the Urals of Russia through Asia and northern North America. In Asia they occur mainly in the mountains through the middle of the continent south to the Himalayas. In Pleistocene time they ranged across Europe to England. In North America they are limited to the western side of the continent, from the Mount McKinley region of Alaska down the Rocky Mountains to New Mexico and along the Cascades and Sierra Nevada to the Mount Whitney region, in California. Giving to these North American animals the appellation “cony” is one of many instances in which the name of an Old World animal is brought to America to designate a totally unrelated species. Once fixed in current use, the misapplied term is certain to persist. Pikas are among the few mammals which live permanently along the high crests of the mountains, mainly above timberline, but they also descend in rock slides among the upper spruces, firs, and pines. The altitude of their haunts varies with the latitude, being between 8,000 and 13,500 feet in the United States, but in Alaska much lower.