RAGGYLUG 



THE STORY OF A COTTONTAIL 

 RABBIT 



RAGGYLUG, or Rag, was the name of a 

 young cottontail rabbit. It was given 

 him from his torn and ragged ear, a 

 life-mark that he got in his first adventure. 

 He lived with his mother in Olifant's swamp, 

 where I made their acquaintance and gathered, 

 in a hundred different ways, the little bits of 

 proof and scraps of truth that at length enabled 

 me to write this history. 



Those who do not know the animals well 

 may think I have humanized them, but those 

 who have lived so near them as to know some- 

 what of their ways and their minds will not 

 think so. 



Truly rabbits have no speech as we under- 

 stand it, but they have a way of conveying 

 ideas by a system of sounds, signs, scents, 

 whisker-touches, movements, and example that 

 answers the purpose of speech ; and it must be 



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