OF WILD ANIMALS 167 



make his home. Over the slide-rock that protects him, the 

 snows of the long and dreary winter pile up from six to ten feet 

 deep, and lie unbroken for months. And how does the pika 

 survive? 



When he is awake, he lives on hay, of his own making! 



In September and October, and up to the arrival of the en- 

 veloping snow, he cuts plants of certain kinds to his liking, he 

 places them in little piles atop of rocks or fallen logs where the 

 sun wiU strike them, and he leaves them there until they dry 

 sufficiently to be stored without mildewing. Mr. Charles L. 

 Smith declared that the pikas know enough to change their 

 little hay piles as the day wears on, from shade to sunlight. 

 The plants to be made into hay are cut at the edge of the slide- 

 rock, usually about a foot in length, and are carried in and 

 placed on flat-topped rocks around the mouth of the burrow. 

 The stems are laid together with fair evenness, and from start to 

 finish the ha3rmaking of the pika is conducted with admirable 

 system and precision. When we saw and examined half a 

 dozen of those curing hay piles, we felt inclined to take off our 

 hats to the thinking mind of that small animal which was 

 making a perfectly successful struggle to hold its own against the 

 winter rigors of the summits, and at the same time escape 

 from its enemies. 



The common, eveiy-day Cotton-Tail Rabbit (Lepus syl- 

 vaticus) is not credited by anyone with being as wise as a fox, 

 but that is due to our own careless habits of thought. It has 

 been man's way, ever since the days of the Cavemen, to under- 

 rate all wild animals except himself. We are not going to cite 

 a long line of individual instances to exhibit the mental processes 

 or the natural wisdom of the rabbit. All we need do is to point 

 to its success in maintaining its existence in spite of the enemies 

 arrayed against it. 



Take the state of Pennsylvania, and consider this list of the 

 rabbit's mortal enemies: 



450,000 well-armed men and boys, regularly licensed and 



