A LIFE OF FEAR 141 



tragedy was seen written there upon the white, 

 even surface of the field ! 



The rabbit has not much wit. Once, when a 

 boy, I saw one that had been recently caught, 

 liberated in an open field in the presence of a 

 dog that was being held a few yards away. The 

 poor thing lost all presence of mind, and was 

 quickly caught by the clumsy dog. 



A hunter once saw a hare running upon the 

 ice along the shore of one of the Rangeley lakes. 

 Presently a lynx appeared in hot pursuit ; as soon 

 as the hare found it was being pursued, it began 

 to circle, foolish thing. This gave the lynx 

 greatly the advantage, as it could follow in a 

 much smaller circle. Soon the hare was run 

 down and seized. 



I saw a similar experiment tried with a red 

 squirrel with quite opposite results. The boy 

 who had caught the squirrel in his wire trap 

 had a very bright and nimble dog about the 

 size of a fox, that seemed to be very sure he 

 could catch a red squirrel under any circum- 

 stances if only the trees were out of the way. 

 So the boy went to the middle of an open field 

 with his caged squirrel, the dog, who seemed to 

 know what was up, dancing and jumping about 

 him. It was in midwinter ; the snow had a firm 

 crust that held boy and dog alike. The dog was 



