14:8 A NEW WAY OF TAKING BABBITS. 



the cows in the morning, or after them at night. I had a 

 longing to ' make game ' of them. I had a brother a good 

 deal older than myself, who was as fond of a joke as I was 

 of the rabbits, and who was quite as refady to make game of 

 me, as I was of them ; so he told me, one day to put an 

 apple on a stick over their paths, high enough to be just 

 above their reach, and a handful of Scotch snuff on a dry 

 leaf on the ground under it, and the rabbits, while smelling 

 for the apple, would inhale the snuff, and sneeze themselves 

 to death in no time. Well, I was a child then and simple 

 enough to be gammoned by this rigmarole. I set the apple 

 and the snuff, but I got no rabbit, while I did get laughed 

 at hugely for my credulity. This satisfied me that people 

 should never impose upon the simplicity of childhood. I 

 remember my mortification on the occasion. It was so long 

 ago that it stands out by itself, a mere fragment of memory, 

 with all beyond it a blank, and a wide gap on this side. It 

 is an isolated fact, fixed in my recollection by the pain it 

 occasioned me." 



" Your anecdote of the rabbits," said the Doctor, " reminds 

 me of a story told of a Dutchman, who discovered au owl 

 on a limb above him, and noticed that its face, and great 

 round eyes, followed him always as he walked around the 

 tree, without its body moving at all. Seeing this he con- 

 cluded in his wisdom, that he would travel round the tree, 

 till the owl twisted its head off in watching him. So round 

 and round he went for an hour, and stopped only by having 



