The Cottontail 
the little cotton-tailed chap is once more at home in the woods. 
Like the white rabbit the cottontail has well-beaten paths, 
which it follows winter and summer alike, but these are usually 
not so extended and regular as those of its larger cousin. 
In winter the goshawk has a habit of following these paths 
on foot in a most unhawk-like manner, especially where they 
are arched over by bushes that might prevent the hawks from 
pouncing down from above, and | believe that it is done with 
the intention of driving the rabbits out into the open woods 
where, perchance, the hawk’s mate is waiting to seize them, 
for goshawks usually hunt in pairs throughout the winter. Even 
the common crow, unless | am very much mistaken, not in- 
frequently manages to kill rabbits when the new snow is suf- 
ficiently deep and light to prevent them from making full use 
of their power of running. 
The rabbit’s custom of resorting to burrows perhaps as fre- 
quently proves a menace to its safety as otherwise, particularly 
where, as is often the case, there is only one place of exit, for 
the mink, the skunk and the weasel can all easily enter any open- 
ing that will admit a rabbit and undoubtedly often get their 
dinner in that manner. 
Last winter | saw what looked like a rabbit crouching among 
the stems of a cluster of wild rose bushes, but on approaching 
more closely I discovered that the animal had been dead for 
several days, having evidently been killed by a weasel, and in 
the struggle became so wedged between the briars that its captor 
was unable to move it and must needs satisfy itself with suck- 
ing its blood and leaving it in that position. 
Later some white-footed mice and a blue jay had also been at 
work nibbling and pecking here and there, but by the time they 
had discovered it it had evidently become frozen so hard as to 
prevent their making much impression on it, so that at a dis- 
tance of a few yards it looked as if still alive. 
The gray rabbit prefers above all things briar-grown berry 
patches with a sprinkling of young pines and birches and nu- 
merous rotting stumps of a former generation of trees, but readily 
establishes itself in any kind of woods, high or low, while any 
isolated clump of bushes a few rods in extent, whether it be by 
the road-side or on the edge of a meadow is likely to harbour 
a family of them. 
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