Prairie-hare 073 



does not constitute an acceptable barter stock, even where the 

 fur-trade rivalry is keenest. The flesh is wholesome food, but 

 has never achieved any popularity. It may yet establish itself 

 as desirable game, to which high rank all sporting men should 

 aim to help it as a measure of protection. But in making such 

 apologetic enumeration of possible virtues, I feel myself guilty 

 of something like special pleading, of making an appeal to 

 the earthy jury, 'called law-makers'; for after all, its claim 

 strongest with the lovers of the wild things, certainly with 

 myself, is this — that, like so many I would save, without being 

 able to prove their economic worth, the Hare is an exquisitely 

 beautiful creature, an ornament to the plains, a delight to 

 behold. I would preserve it, and a hundred others, even as 

 I would preserve a beautiful picture, or view, for the unsordid 

 joy of feasting the eyes on a sentient fellow creature, that is 

 a little pinnacle on the cathedral of evolution, and glorious as 

 an exemplar of beauty in the wild way of life. 



I. Prairie-hare. II. Black.tailed Jack. HI. Suowshoe. IV. Cottontail. 



