THE GUIDE TO NATURE 
SHE LEADS IN BEAUTYAND INTEREST 
FROM tK 
fc HOMES TO NATURE'S REALMS. Og 
PS EDWARD F. BIGELOW, MANAGING EDITORSH 


— - -- ' - ■■ - JJS.. - ? 
Published monthly by The Agassiz Association, ArcAdiA: Sound Beach, Connecticut, 
Subscription, Si. 50 a year Single copy, 15 cents 
Entered as Second-Class Matter June 12, 1909, at Sound Beach Post Office, under Act of March 3, 1897. 
Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, 
authorized on June ' 27 , 1918. 
Volume XIV. JUNE, 1921 Number 1 
Rabbit Tales. 
By Clifford E. Davis, Cumberland, Maryland. 
In passing- through a thick forest 
after a heavy fall of snow I saw before 
me the cross trail of a fleeing rabbit. 
He was advancing with terrific leaps 
inspired only by fear ; far back in the 
woods I heard the baying of a hound. 
Knowing that in the deep snow the 
game could not go far before being 
caught, I struck after it on the run. 
The trail crossed a streamlet, and up 
the opposite hillside, steep as a roof. 
Up I scrambled, falling, slipping, pull- 
ing myself up by weeds and bushes, till 
I reached the top, where the rabbit 
went into an old peach orchard full of 
tangled vines. Here I could go faster. 
I dodged, ducked and ran. On through 
a strip of timber, out into an old hill- 
side field. The rabbit’s jumps were 
growing shorter, the trail fresher. Then 
the tracks ceased abruptly. There was 
no sign of the rabbit. I looked carefully, 
far and wide, but not another track 
could I discover. I was frankly puzzled. 
Where had that rabbit gone? Finally 
I looked closer at a tiny brown spot in 
the snow that I had observed before 
but had mistaken for a hunch of dead 
leaves, lying to one side four feet from 
the tracks. There I found bunny buried 
deep in the snow, head and all. As I 
hauled him out we both panted. Its 
heart was throbbing with fright and 
fatigue, but I stroked its fur and talked 
soothingly to it. After a few struggles 
it rested quietly. I took it home, put it 
in the chicken house and that evening 
turned it loose. A hunter asked me, 
“Why the d 1 didn’t you kill it?” 
After saving its life I preferred to see 
it go free. Next day I passed that way 
again and saw where a dog had plunged 
along on the trail, hunting for himself 
and in the closed season. He would have 
had the little creature if I had not cut 
in ahead and saved its life. 
Hunters chasing a rabbit lost it near 
my house and it dived into a ditch, 
swam under water into my milk house, 
and when I entered it was sitting by 
the door. It plunged into the water, 
swam to the wall and tried to leap up 
to a shelf but fell back. I caught it and 
set it outside the door and away it 
went to safety. 
One used to come every day all sum- 
mer and sit outside my window under a 
rosebush, asleep, despite the cat that 
sat in the window five feet from it and 
the dog that barked in the other yard. 
About sunset it would awake and go 
out for food. As there was poultry net- 
ting all around the yard it was safe 
from dogs, but one day before the 
open season a neighbor called on busi- 
ness and I heard him shoot within a 
Copyright 1921 by The Agassiz Association, ArcAdiA: Sound Beach, Conn. 
