THE ROCKS FOR THE CONIES 183 



or three feet long, piled helter-skelter without 

 form or order, but with such perfect and confus- 

 ing repetition of the pattern, that fixed attention 

 at any one crack or slab seemed to set the whole 

 slide in motion. It was like trying to fasten the 

 eye at some fixed spot on the surface of waving 

 water. Add to this the absolute color-harmony of 

 the rocks and the cony, together with the crea- 

 ture's polyphonous cry, and you have a case of 

 well-nigh perfect protection. On his slide, even 

 when in motion, he must be almost invisible to 

 the sharpest-eyed eagle. 



If you will think of a half-grown rabbit, the 

 cottontail, only without a cotton tail, turned into 

 a guinea-pig with large, round ears, you will get 

 a pretty fair notion of the size, color, and shape 

 of the cony, perhaps better called "pika," or 

 " whistling hare," or " little chief hare." His legs 

 are all of a length, so that he runs and walks in- 

 stead of hops ; and the soles of his feet are bare, 

 He gets his name " cony " from the cony of the 

 Bible (a very different animal) because, like the 

 Old World cony, he lives among the rocks. The 

 little cony of the Bible is Hyrax, who belongs to 

 the elephant family, a curious remnant of an older 



