o 



lO MAMMALIA. 



he would sink back until, sometimes, only the tip of the nose was 

 exposed. I fancy that an immense bull-frog, weighted after the 

 manner of 'Mark Twain's' ' Dan'l Webster,' would cut a some- 

 what similar ficrure. 



" This method of progression was naturally fatiguing, and before 

 the animal reached the opposite bank the strokes became feebler 

 and the intervals between them longer until I began to fear that 

 the tired creature would be drowned. At length, however, he 

 struck bottom, and, loping across a stretch of bare mud, disappeared 

 in the woods. Skc/i an appearance as he presented upon emerging 

 from the water ! — the lankness of his form revealed by the clinging 

 and bedraggled fur, the ears drooping and the whole expression 

 one of dejection and shame. 



" None of the guides or trappers of my acquaintance have ever 

 seen a Rabbit swim, although I have been told of an instance 

 where one was observed to take to the shallow water on the manTin 

 of a pond and run through it for several hundred yards before 

 leaping again into the woods. The purpose of this manctuvre was 

 apparent a moment later when a Sable appeared on the Rabbit's 

 track and following it to the water's edge lost it there. 



"On the occasion just described, however, no pursuer appeared, 

 nor do I think that ^his Rabbit entered the water under cominil- 

 sion, or for the purpose of obliterating the scent of his tracks. On 

 the contrary, the action was undertaken so deliberately, that I 

 believe the animal to ha\e been impelled by some idle whim, 

 merely — such as a desire to try fresh pasturage or, perhaps, to see 

 what the world was like on the other side of the stream. How- 

 ever this may be, the case is doubtless exceptional, for Lcpiis 

 Anicricanus ordinarily has as great an aversion to the water as any 

 house cat." 



Mr. Nelson Harris, a well-known Adirondack hunter, tells me 

 that while still-hunting in Northern Michigan, a few winters a<^o, 

 he saw a white Rabbit, that had stumbled into camp and was 



