302 Life and Sport on the Pacific Slope 



year when the acorns are ripe. If the acorn crop 

 fails, you see few pigeons, and at all times they 

 are very wild. However, in the morning and even- 

 ing they fly across certain divides in the hills, and 

 a couple of guns posted behind blinds may enjoy 

 good sport for an hour or two. Here again you 

 are confronted with the difficulty of giving away 

 your birds, for the wood-pigeon is a tough customer 

 to eat, as he is to kill, and his flesh often has a 

 bitter and unpalatable flavour. 



Of the hares (jack-rabbits) and rabbits (the 

 cotton-tail), there is not much to be written. I 

 can remember the time when jack-rabbits were 

 never eaten, and the prejudice against them still 

 lurks in the breast of the Native Son. When free 

 from disease they are a wholesome and delicious 

 food, and make a civet fit for Lucullus. In Fresno, 

 where the jack-rabbit is a plague, the farmers 

 systematically drive the rabbits into an enclosure, 

 where they are killed by the thousand. In some 

 parts they are coursed; and in early days the 

 vaqueros used to ride them down, — a by no means 

 easy feat. For a reason that I cannot logically 

 defend, this form of sport always seemed to me 

 cruel. I once saw a rabbit chased by a horseman, 

 and at the end it leaped from a high cliff into the 

 Pacific. But the argument that would condemn 

 the vaquero would condemn also the fox-hunter, 

 so I made no protest at the time, although I have 

 never taken part in that particular form of sport 

 again. The ethics of the chase are in a Gordian 

 knot that I for one am unable to cut. 



The cotton-tail, darting from bush to bush, is 



