Peter Cottontail is a name temporarily assumed by a fictional rabbit named Peter Rabbit in the works of Thornton Burgess, an author from Sandwich, Massachusetts In 1910, when Burgess began his Old Mother West Wind series, the cast of animals included Peter Rabbit. Four years later, in , Peter Rabbit, unhappy at his plain-sounding name, briefly changed his name to Peter Cottontail because he felt it made him sound more important. He began putting on airs to live up to his important-sounding name, but after much teasing from his friends, soon returned to his original name, because, as he put it, "There's nothing like the old name after all." In the 26-chapter book, he takes on the new name partway through chapter 2, and returns to his "real" name, Peter Rabbit, at the end of chapter 3. Burge