CHAP. VIL] The Rabbit. 111 
ery is very different from that which it utters when snared 
or half shot. Its cry for help is then most soul-pitying: 
it is like the tremulous voice of an infant, even to the quiv- 
ering of its little innocent lips. 
While Edward found that the deer and the hare were 
among the animals that wandered about a good deal in the 
dark, he did not find that the rabbit was a night-roamer, al- 
though he occasionally saw it moving about by moonlight. 
He often watched the rabbits going into their burrows at 
sunset; and he also observed them emerging from them a 
little before sunrise. But there was one thing about the 
rabbit that perplexed and puzzled him. It did not emit any 
ery, such as the hare does; but he often heard the rabbit 
tap-tap in a particular manner. How was this noise caused ? 
He endeavored to ascertain the cause by close observation. 
Early one morning when he was lying under a whin- 
bush, about twenty yards from the foot of a sandy knoll, 
where there were plenty of rabbits’ holes, he was startled 
by hearing a loud tap-tapping almost close to where he lay. 
The streaks of day were just beginning to appear. Parting 
the bush gently aside and looking through it, he observed 
a rabbit thud-thudding its hind feet upon the ground close 
to the mouth of another rabbit’s hole. 
Edward continued to watch the rabbit. After he had 
finished his tapping at the first hole, he went along the 
hillock and began tap-tapping at another. He went on 
again. He would smell the ground about the hole first, 
and would sometimes pass without tapping. At last he 
got to a hole where his progress was stopped. After he 
had given only two or three thuds, out rushed a full-grown 
rabbit, and flew at the disturber of the peace. He rushed 
at him with such fury that they both rolled headlong down 
hill, until they reached the bottom. 
There they had a rare set-to—a regular rabbit -fight. 
Rabbits are fools at fighting. Their object seems to be to 
leap over each other, and to kick the back of their enemy’s 
