The Big Snow 211 



lowly in light earth. Sometimes it is a mole- 

 run very much enlarged. Rabbit-litters are 

 blind at first, and have no use of their legs, 

 though they will roll clumsily over and begin 

 nuzzling at the touch of anything warm — a 

 hand, a cheek, or even the warm side of a 

 basket. They breathe very slowly and look 

 more like pinches of whitey-brown hair than 

 living creatures. The birth-coat is scant and 

 almost rough to the touch. Down grows as 

 they get their eyes open. But before they 

 can walk they have the curious rabbit power 

 to close at will the external ear. 



A baby rabbit creeping shyly out for his 

 first meal of buds and grass is the quaintest, 

 daintiest figure of all the fields, so tiny he can 

 snuggle down in your palm, soft all over as 

 a fluff of thistle down, moving uncertainly 

 with a slow, velvet- footed amble, yet never in 

 a straight line. Thus early he knows that 

 his track must be a maze — also that he must 

 go home to the nest along the way he came. 

 And there is where the exquisite rabbit-nose 

 comes in. Coming and going thus, and 

 breaking up the trail now and then with a 

 leap, he lessens the danger of being followed 

 and caught much more than half. 



Like the other wild things. Brer Rabbit 

 is instinctively ware of deep snow. He feeds 

 mightily when the fall begins, then scutters 



