THE UBIQUITOUS BUNNY

Image Gallery

By David Petersen

"Here comes Peter Cottontail,
hoppin' down the bunny trail, hippity hoppin',
Easter's on its way."

Here comes Peter Cottontail . . . yes, indeed. You know it's that springtime of year again when you hear children (and children's TV and radio programs) belting out the old familiar ditty.

"Peter Cottontail" was written by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins back in 1949. In the 38 years since, the loony little tune has become as musically evocative of the nonsectarian aspects of the Easter season as "Here Comes Santa Claus" is of Christmas with the Easter rabbit now almost (but not quite) as prominent as jolly old Saint Nick himself.

Bringin' ev'ry girl and boy, baskets full of Easter joy, things to make your Easter bright and gay.

How in heaven's name-have you ever wondered?-did a concept as preposterous as an egg-laying rabbit (a male rabbit at that) ever manage to become associated with one of the most sacred of all Western religious observances?

Thereupon, as they say, hangs a tale. The story of Peter Cottontail had its beginnings in the old days-the very old days. Back then, centuries before the birth of Christ, the forerunner of the Easter bunny was already a celebrated figure in the springtime fertility rites of the ancient Celts. But this prototypical Easter bunny wasn't a cottontail rabbit at all (they didn't exist in Europe in those days), no sir; he was a European hare. Rabbit, hare-so what's it matter, you ask? After all, they're both furry little critters that hop and chew and wiggle their noses. Granted, it's a hare-splitting distinction, but for those of us interested in the nature of all things natural, it remains a distinction worth clarifying.

Both rabbits and hares belong to the order Lagomorpha (literally, "hare-shaped"), which almost certainly had its origins in Asia (like most everything else mammalian) but can be traced back a good 50 million years right here in North America. Lagomorpha is a smallish order, comprising just two families—Ochotonidae, those vociferous little alpine funny-bunnies known as pikas (sometimes called conies), and Leporidae, the rabbits and hares. All lagomorphs have cleft upper lips (giving rise to the unfortunate expression harelip) and long, rodentlike incisors that grow constantly to compensate for wear. But, contrary to popular (and until 1912, scientific) belief, lagomorphs are not rodents.

Thus, rabbits and hares belong to the same family but are distinct genera. (In descending rank by size, the scientific classification of living things goes like so: order, suborder, family, genus, species, subspecies.) And how can those of us who care to do so tell rabbits from hares? It's not always easy, as evidenced by the frequency with which our language confuses the two: In addition to the original Easter beast having been a European hare rather than an American cottontail rabbit, the domestic bunny commonly known as the Belgian "hare" is actually a rabbit, and the jack "rabbit" is really a hare—just as the snowshoe "rabbit" in fact is a snowshoe (also called "varying") hare.