1 1 72 Rural School Leaflet 



fine, scraping teeth (Fig. 4), can be seen in motion. Some of the snails look 

 very strange as they walk along the underside of the surface film of the water. 

 Their eggs are deposited in clear, jelly-like, almost transparent packets, 

 each containing one hundred to one hundred and fifty eggs. In an 

 aquarium these eggs are frequently attached to the glass sides, but in 

 the pond they will be found attached to stems or the undersides of leaves. 

 The part of the snail which protrudes from the shell and by means 

 of which it moves about is known as the " foot." The eyes are borne 

 on the ends of long tentacles on the forward end of this " foot." If dis- 

 turbed these eyes disappear in the inside of the tentacle. Snails have 

 also two shorter tentacles which aid them in their searches. All air- 

 breathing snails have lungs within the mantle that lines the body chamber 

 of the shell. In snails in an aquarium the edge of the mantle can be 

 seen to rise at one point from time to time and release a " bubble of air." 

 (Fig. 5). 



RABBITS 

 Anna Botsford Comstock 



In the northeastern United States there is only one common species 

 of rabbit, and that is the gray rabbit, or cottontail. The varying hare, 

 or white rabbit, which was common here fifty years ago, has become 

 practically exterminated. This was one of the most interesting of the 

 species because it changed its coat to white in the winter. 



The two most noticeable features in the general appearance of a rabbit 

 are its long ears and its long hind legs. These two characters are closely 

 connected: the long ears are always on the move to catch any sound 

 of danger, and as soon as this is heard its direction is determined; then 

 the long hind legs are used to help the little creature go in the other 

 direction in mighty leaps. The constantly moving nose probably also 

 has to do with sniffing danger, for it is only through sure flight that these 

 little animals may escape from the many enemies which surround them. 

 The rabbits are peculiar also in that the bottoms of their feet are hairy. 

 The front feet cannot be used to hold food to the mouth as is true of 

 squirrels and mice, but this is not needed as the rabbit eats on the ground. 



The cottontail does not dig a burrow, but sometimes occupies the de- 

 serted burrow of a woodchuck or a skunk. Its nest is called a form, 

 which merely means a place beneath a cover of grass or briars, where the 

 grass is beaten down or eaten out for a space large enough for the animal 

 to sit in. The mother makes a soft bed for the young, using grass and 

 her own hair for the purpose; and she constructs a coarse, felted coverlet, 

 under which she tucks her babies with care every time she leaves them. 

 When they are about three weeks old they can run rapidly. 



