include clovers (Trifolium spp.) and crabgrasses (Digitaria spp.). In Connecticut important summer foods include clovers, alfalfa, timothy (Phleum pratense), bluegrasses (Poa spp.), quackgrass (Elytrigia repens), crabgrasses, redtop (Agrostis alba), ragweed (Ambrosia psilostachya), goldenrods (Solidago spp.), plantains (Plantago spp.), chickweed (Stellaria media), and dandelion (Taraxacum officinale). Eastern cottontails also consume many domestic crops. During the dormant season, or when green vegetation is covered with snow, eastern cottontails consume twigs, buds, and bark of woody vegetation. In Connecticut, important winter foods include gray birch (Betula populifolia), red maple, and smooth sumac (Rhus glabra). Mortality In Kansas, the largest cause of mortality of radiotracked eastern cottontails was predation (43%), followed by deaths due to the research process (19%), and tularemia (18%). A major cause of eastern cottontail mortality is collision with automobiles. In Missouri, it was estimated that ten eastern cottontails are killed annually per mile of road. The peak period of highway mortality is in spring (March through May); roadside vegetation greens up before adjacent fields and is highly attractive to eastern cottontails. Annual adult survival is estimated at 20%. Average longevity is 15 months in the wild; the longest-lived wild individual on record was five years old. Captive eastern cottontails have lived to at least nine years of age. Eastern cottontails are hosts to fleas, ticks, lice, cestodes, nematodes, trematodes, gray flesh fly larvae, botfly larvae, tularemia, shopes fibroma, torticollis, and cutaneous streptothricosis. Further summary of diseases and pests is available. Predators The eastern cottontail has to contend with many predators, both natural and introduced. Due to their often large populations in Eastern North America, they form a major component of several predators' diets. Major predators of eastern cottontail include domestic cats and dogs, foxes (Vulpes and Urocyon spp.), coyote (C. latrans), bobcat (Lynx rufus), weasels (Mustela spp.), raccoon (Procyon lotor), mink (M. vison), great horned owl (Bubo virginianus), barred owl (Strix varia), hawks (principally Buteo spp.), corvids (Corvus spp.), and snakes. Predators that take nestlings include raccoon, badger (Taxidea taxus), skunks (Mephitis and Spilogale spp.), Crow, and Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana). In central Missouri, eastern cottontails comprised the majority of biomass in the diet of red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) during the nesting season. In Pennsylvania, the chief predator of eastern cottontails is the great horned owl. In the Southwest cottontails including eastern cottontail comprise 7 to 25% of the diets of northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis). In Texas, eastern cottontails are