IN FIELD AND WOOD 



The rabbit is a nocturnal animal. It does not sit 

 in its form at night to be stalked by its enemies, or 

 to be taken by any sapping and mining process. In 

 daylight a weasel might steal upon it and seize it in 

 its form, but not by night. In my part of the coun- 

 try, the rabbit runs to hole in the winter and passes 

 the day there. The boys catch it with ferrets. The 

 minks and weasels catch it in its hole alone. My 

 hired man, who is an old hunter, tells me he once saw 

 upon the snow where a mink had brought a rabbit 

 out of a hole and carried it a long distance to his 

 den. He followed the trail and saw by the imprint 

 upon the snow that every little while the mink had 

 had to lay down his burden and rest. 



Five men live near me who spend much of their 

 time in winter hunting and trapping. They are keen 

 observers and perfectly reliable; what they tell me 

 they have seen I accept as freely as if I had seen it 

 myself. I might not always accept then- inferences 

 from, or other interpretations of, what they had 

 seen, but the fact itself I never question. 



One of these men told me that one autumn day 

 after the first snow-fall, in his walk he came upon a 

 rabbit-track followed by that of a weasel. He took 

 up the trail and presently in a clear, open place in the 

 woods he came upon the dead rabbit still in the 

 clutches of the weasel. The rabbit was warm and 

 limp. The marks upon the snow showed that the 

 weasel had caught the rabbit in the open when the 

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