868 UPLAND AND MEADOW. 



and there, in utter bewilderment, stood my neighbor's 

 heifer. 



October 26. — Jack Frost legislates, so far as the game- 

 laws of the hillside are concerned, and the weather sug- 

 gested the setting of rabbit traps last evening, which I 

 did. One trap in the garden, two in the gully, tlireo 

 along the hill, and a rabbit in every other one when tlie 

 night is keen and still. This was the rule in the days 

 of my grandfather, a century ago; but now one rabbit 

 to every six traps, and that but seldom, is much nearer 

 tlie mark. What of that ? The quiet stroll to the places 

 where the traps are placed, the setting of each, and dust- 

 ing of our tracks with dead leaves, all this is to be done, 

 and the excitement of faint expectation of a "cotton 

 tail " is worth a good deal. The night passes ; by the 

 first cock-crow it is time to recall the traps, and just be- 

 fore sunrise each should be visited. There is a strange 

 notion quite prevalent among the very old people yet re- 

 maining that a buck rabbit will lift the lid of a box-trap, 

 at sunrise, even if it is weighted. Absurd as it is, it holds 

 in the mind of men like Miles Overfield, Davie Shores, 

 and half a dozen septuagenarians within a mile of home. 



The ordinary reply to the question of why this is, is 

 that they know it — had they not always heard it ? Miles's 

 father told him that " the first glimmer of sunshine would 

 open a steel trap and let every critter go as was caught 

 in the night," and Miles believed it, although every win- 

 ter of his trapping days had contradicted the absurdity. 



The probable origin is, that in colonial times, when 

 every farm lad had his traps, this idea was spread abroad, 



