118 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



though, but merely feeds there. He lives two lots away, 

 in a pile of straw round a rambler rose-bush. Our 

 dogs often try to catch him, but he is too clever. The 

 other day, before this spring snowfall, I was in the 

 garden with the dogs. We saw nothing. Hickey, how- 

 ever, picked up a scent and began following it over 

 the brown soil. Suddenly, under the terrier's nose, the 

 dead, brown lump of a cauliflower plant came to life and 

 began to jump. The dogs were after it, in full cry. Br'er 

 Rabbit doubled and gained a few steps, but the dogs 

 closed on him. Again he doubled, and this time made 

 for a sheet of ice in the shadow behind the house. The 

 instant his feet struck this ice he doubled again. The 

 dogs slid ten feet, helplessly. This gave him the time he 

 needed. He disappeared under the fence, like a vanish- 

 ing ball of white worsted, and left the dogs baying their 

 rage. 



Our house is on the main street of a populous village 

 in the Berkshires, yet this rabbit has left his tracks in 

 the snow this Winter clear out to the front sidewalk. 

 He is a wild rabbit, too, not an escaped pet. After the 

 snow came in the Autumn, in addition to his track and, 

 of course, the innumerable tracks of squirrels under the 

 evergreens and of snowbirds around the crumb tray at 

 the back door, I used to find record in the morning of 

 unexpected night visitors. A skunk tracked several 

 times up from the swamp behind to the garbage pail. 

 Some years ago a wealthy resident of our hills stocked 



