SHY LIFE IN THE DESERT 227 



" They were n't jack rabbits, were they ? " He 

 had never seen a coyote in Arizona, he said, 

 though he had seen plenty in Colorado. 



As for the big jack rabbits, if I have not seen 

 " plenty " of them (and I cannot truthfully pro- 

 fess so much as that), I have seen a good many. 

 One cannot walk far in the desert, with his eyes 

 ranging, without discovering, to right or left or 

 in advance, a pair of long ears, followed by a 

 black tail, making quick time out of sight. 

 Generally the creatures seem to run by fits and 

 starts (" leaps and bounds and sudden stops " 

 would express it) , but the other morning a fellow 

 had evidently been frightened almost out of his 

 five senses by something not by me when 

 a long way from home. There were no stops 

 in his schedule. Straight across the desert he 

 bounded, going like an express train a mile a 

 minute at the very least. 



So lively as these large rabbits are (there is a 

 smaller kind that I have not yet seen 1 ) they 

 would be as interesting as the much larger coy- 

 otes but for their greater commonness. For 

 grace and lightness, as well as speed, their gait 

 is next to flying. All the words in the dictionary 



1 They are not to be found on the desert, I afterward 

 learned, but along the watercourses. There I often saw 

 them. 



