FAR AND NEAR 



noon I happened that way. He told me what he had 

 found, and pointed to the spot a few yards off. I ap- 

 proached the place cautiously and began to scan 

 the ground at my feet. There was no bush or stump 

 or weed or stone to distract my eye, — only the back 

 of a small knoll, brown with fern stubble and dry 

 fern leaves. 



"I can see no nest or rabbits here," I said to 

 George. "Where are they?" So he came up, and 

 stooping over, lifted up a tiny coverlid of dry fern 

 stalks, in which were mingled tufts of gray hair, and 

 disclosed a small depression in the ground, where 

 sat three little rabbits that one might almost have 

 held in the palm of his hand. Their ears were de- 

 pressed, their eyes shone, and their hearts beat fast. 

 In a moment they sprang out ; we covered them with 

 our hats and hands, and restored them to the nest 

 as gently as we could, pulling their blanket over 

 them. But they pushed their heads up through it and 

 between our fingers in their efforts to escape. We 

 held them down and finally quieted them, and then 

 carefully withdrew. I do not know how long they 

 remained in the nest, but when I came the next day 

 with some friends, we found the nest empty. One 

 of my friends, who was a naturalist, picked up the 

 cover of ferns and hair and examined it, and let it 

 fall in pieces to the ground. The weather was very 

 warm; we fancied the mother had taken her fam- 

 ily into the bush. A night or two after was very 



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