BABES IN THE WOODS 



cold, with heavy frost. The day following I again 

 passed the nest, and was surprised to see two httle 

 rabbits sitting side by side in it. As they did not 

 move, I touched them, and found them dead and 

 cold. The mother, on the approach of the cold wave, 

 had evidently brought her young back to the nest, 

 and having no cover over them, they had perished 

 of the frost. One would have thought she would 

 stay by them to keep them warm, or else cover them 

 with the fragments of the old blanket. Though of 

 course it is possible that she herself had fallen a 

 victim to some enemy, and that the young had died 

 of hunger, seeking in their last extremity the cradle 

 in which they were born. The fate of the third one 

 I do not know. I left the two babies in the nest as I 

 had found them. 



On the third day I came that way again with Ted. 

 To my surprise, the two baby rabbits had disap- 

 peared. But what was that sticking up through the 

 soil in the bottom of the cavity? It was the end 

 of one tiny ear, and beneath it we found the two 

 young rabbits carefully buried. We exhumed them 

 and brought them forth. They had been literally 

 buried. What or who had performed these last sad 

 rites ? The mother ? I know not. Not a hair of 

 them had been injured, as far as we could see, but 

 the little bodies had been carefully put from sight, 

 not by the use of leaves, as the robins covered the 

 children in the nursery tale, but by soil. We re- 

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