2IO Next to the Ground 



will also girdle young peach trees. In the 

 garden he eats down green peas, young beet 

 tops, beans, sweet-potato slips, cabbage plants. 

 Fluttering white rags, scraps of bright tin 

 strewed on the ground, or bottles tipped to- 

 gether so they will roll at a touch, all serve 

 to frighten him away, especially in moon- 

 shine. But the safe and sure preventive of 

 his night ravaging, is to sprinkle the garden 

 plot liberally roundabout with water in which 

 a freshly killed rabbit has been torn to pieces. 

 Until rain falls he will no more cross a strip 

 of ground so sprinkled than a snake will 

 crawl over a horsehair rope. Rain washes 

 the scent away, so after it there needs must 

 be more sprinkling. 



Brer Rabbit fights only one animal — his 

 cousin-german, almost his counterpart, the 

 hare. To the casual eye the animals are 

 much the same, though science distinguishes 

 between them. Both have the cleft upper 

 lip, also the thick flocculent down under- 

 neath the hair of the coat, which makes the 

 game books class them flock^ as opposed to 

 feather — which includes pheasants, partridges, 

 quails, grouse and black cock, indeed the 

 whole range of land-feeding game birds. 

 Flock — the thick underdown — comes away 

 easily. Mother-rabbits strip their breasts of 

 it to line their nests. The nest is dug shal- 



