58 THE MINDS AND MANNERS 



Wright has a high opinion of the grizzly bear as a thinking 

 animal. 



In hiding their homes and young, either in burrows or in 

 nests on the ground, wild rabbits and hares are wonderfully 

 skilful, even under new conditions. Being quite unable to 

 fight, or even to dig deeply, they are wholly dependent upon 

 their wits in keeping their young alive by hiding them. 

 Thanks to their keenness in concealment, the gray rabbit is 

 plentiful throughout the eastern United States in spite of its 

 millions of enemies. Is it not wonderful? The number killed 

 by hunters last year in Pennsylvania was about 3,500,000! 



The most amazing risk that I ever saw taken by a rabbit 

 was made by a gray rabbit that nested in a shallow hole in the 

 middle of a lawn-mower lawn east of the old National Museum 

 building in Washington. The hollow was like that of a small 

 wash-basin, and when at rest in it with her young ones the 

 neutral gray back of the mother came just level with the top 

 of the ground. At the last, when her young were almost 

 large enough to get out and go under their own steam, a lawn- 

 mower artist chanced to look down at the wrong moment and 

 saw the family. Evidently that mother believed that the 

 boldest ventures are those most likely to win. 



Among the hoofed and horned animals of North America 

 the white-tailed deer is the shrewdest in the recognition of its 

 enemies, the wisest in the choice of cover, and in measures for 

 self-preservation. It seems at first glance that the buck is 

 more keen-witted than the doe; but this is a debatable question. 

 Throughout the year the buck thinks only of himself. During 

 fully one-half the year the doe is burdened by the cares of 

 motherhood, and the paramount duty of saving her fawns from 

 their numerous enemies. This, I am quite sure, is the handicap 

 which makes it so much easier to kill a doe in the autumn 

 hunting season than to bag a fully antlered and sophisticated 

 buck who has only himself to consider. 



The white-tailed deer saves its life by skulking low in 



