Bunnies don’t lay eggs, which would appear to make the two an odd match for such a holy day — bunnies and eggs certainly aren’t mentioned in the Scripture. It’s believed rabbits became associated with Easter because German immigrants in the 1700s carried on the tradition of a spring fertility festival. Rabbits are associated with birth and springtime due to their famously high reproductive rates, and an egg-laying hare known as “Osterhase” or “Oschter Haws” (meaning “Easter Hare” in German) was part of the mythology the Pennsylvania Dutch brought with them when they first settled in the United States. Not every country has an Easter Bunny, however — Switzerland has a cuckoo and Australia has a bilby.