UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



and when they were nearly full-grown, and the food 

 was insuflBcient, they proceeded to devour one an- 

 other. I kept two of the survivors a few days, but 

 they were so utterly cruel and savage that I was 

 glad to let them escape. 



Most of our rodents are as free from guile as our 

 birds; they have none of the subtlety and cunning 

 of their enemies the fox and the wolf; they are 

 simply wild and shy. The rabbit has little wit, yet 

 she manages to run the gantlet of her numerous 

 enemies. Some of her arts of concealment are as old 

 as mankind — the art of hiding where no one would 

 think of looking — concealment where there is little 

 to conceal her. One March day I started a rabbit 

 from her form in a broad, open cultivated field. She 

 had excavated a little place in the soft ground just 

 deep enough to admit the hind part of her body and 

 there she crouched in the open sunlight with only a 

 little dry grass partly screening her. When I was 

 within two paces of her she bounded away like the 

 wind and directed her course toward a bushy ravine 

 several hundred yards away. The advantage of her 

 position was that she commanded all approaches; 

 nothing could steal a march upon her, and she 

 could flee in any direction. In a tangle of weeds or 

 bushes she would have been where every one of her 

 natural enemies prowl or beat about, and where 

 concealment would have been more or less confine- 

 ment. A few yards farther along I came upon an- 

 102 



