This subspecies was recorded on the interior slope from 5200 feet
elevation, as at the head of Grandview Canyon, down into the desert, and
was common in the sagebrush flats of the upper pinyon-juniper
association. Piles of feces under thick oak and mountain-mahogany
chaparral indicated that the rabbits often sought shelter there.
Adequate cover is a requirement for this rabbit on the desert slope of
the San Gabriels; in the juniper and Joshua tree belts the species
occurs in washes where there is fairly heavy brush, and only
occasionally elsewhere. In the foothills, when frightened from cover in
one small wash cottontails often run up over an adjacent low ridge and
seek cover in the brush of the next wash. In the wash below Graham
Canyon tracks and observations showed that cottontails were taking
refuge in deserted burrows of kit foxes.
In the pinyon-juniper association cottontails and jack rabbits probably
occur in roughly equal numbers, but in the Joshua tree belt cottontails
seem far less numerous than jack rabbits. In the course of a two hour
hike in lower Mescal Wash, at about 3500 feet, eleven jack rabbits and
two cottontails were noted.
_Specimens examined._--Total, 2, distributed as follows: Los
Angeles County: 6 mi. E and 1 mi. S Llano, 3500 ft., 1; Mescal
Canyon, 4800 ft., 1.
=Sylvilagus bachmani cinerascens= (J. A. Allen)