April, 1920 
FOREST AND STREAM 
193 
One more point in Gaueho’,s letter and 
I will leave the field to him, for I am 
too far away and do not care to be 
drawn into any long range or personal 
discussion. 
Allowing for a moment that I am 
right, and a fitter puts into the hands 
of a customer a gun, the centre of the 
charge of the right barrel of which does 
shoot far to the left at forty yards, in 
what other way does he get the charge 
tb centre in snap shooting except by 
“casting off” the stock? but the left bar- 
rel would shoot further to the right 
than ever, as pointed out in my first 
letter, Gaucho’s wiggle-waggle stock 
notwithstanding. 
I fear Gaucho — like many another — 
believes that what he does not know, can- 
not be. 
I also note his reason for remaining 
anonymous, which, of course, I respect, 
for if he has written to “America’s 
foremost sporting papers for almost 
forty years on subjects like this and 
condemned as “misleading,” “inaccu- 
rate,” etc., knowledge derived from care- 
ful and exhaustive experiments, just be- 
cause they do not agree with his theo- 
ries, he is well advised to continue his 
“Nom de Plume.” 
L. Mitchell- Henry, London, England. 
RABBITS 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream : 
I N a recent issue of Forest and Stream 
a naturalist gave as his opinion that 
the large bunch of white fur in the tail 
of the rabbit was placed their by Nature 
purely as a protection to the young. 
When the mother and young are feeding 
and she hears or sees danger, she stamps 
the ground with her feet and runs to the 
safest place she knows. The young im- 
mediately follow her white flag through 
the darkest of places, being able to see 
the flashes of her white tail on dark 
nights. 
The writer of this wa,s quite right in 
his presumptions, but as he did not go 
into detail on the subject, I feel it is my 
duty to give him the further enlighten- 
ment that he seems to need and to give 
the dear public what the two of us to- 
gether have observed. Many and many 
a time, I have seen the white flash of the 
rabbits’ tail at night, but where there are 
no young impeding flight by suckling or 
following, the light of the tail is used to 
blind the dogs. For this reason, a dog 
that has a keen sense of smell is better 
for hunting rabbits than a dog with only 
good eyesight. Also it is a good idea to 
have a dog with a fine sense of hearing, 
for he is thus able to make short cuts, 
and follow the flight of the rabbit by the 
“whish” of the air as he runs. 
Young rabbits have no sense of dan- 
ger, and have been known to hold their 
mother while suckling, and she, being un- 
able to break loose, the whole covey was 
killed. I did not see this take place, but 
I saw the spot where the rabbits had 
been killed and have no doubt that the 
report was true. Other times, I have 
seen rabbits throw sand in the eyes of 
the dogs to blind and put them out of the 
race. One rabbit when hotly pursued, 
stepped on the end of a crooked stick, 
raising the other end in such a manner 
that it was rammed down the throat of 
the pursuing dog. 
The true species of rabbit, as known 
in history and story, is a very lovable 
creature. In several of the southern 
states, where it is quite warm, he will 
suddenly turn mad, and then the wise 
sportsman will look out or he is apt to 
get bitten. Most any rabbit will bite when 
mad, but it takes more to make him mad 
than it does a man. Sometimes you can 
kick a rabbit out of his bed and it will 
not make him mad. If you were imposed 
upon as much as a rabbit you would be 
mad all the time. 
Rabbits are known by several names, 
but they are all rabbits. There is the 
Jack rabbit, and this is the male of the 
tribe. There are two kinds, just like- 
man, the white-tail Jack and the black- 
tail Jack. As the children follow the 
mother, the Jack rabbit does not neces- 
sarily have to have a white tail. The 
mother rabbit, or Cottontail, as she is 
commonly called, has a white tail to be 
used for the purposes above mentioned. 
The black-tail Jack rabbit has a black 
ring to represent a target, and he was in- 
tended by nature to be the one most often 
killed by rifle and shell fire. 
The snow-shoe rabbit is the most per- 
secuted rabbit of them all, and like the 
noble buffalo, he is apt to be exterminated 
unless there is a change in styles, or bet- 
ter protection by game laws. This rabbit 
is hunted by the thousands just for the 
snow-shoes he has. A sudden change 
from snow-shoes to ski will save this 
rabbit, just a,s a change from elk teeth 
to carp scales has saved the wapiti. 
The natural enemy of the rabbit is the 
fox, and why he should want to pick on 
the fox is more than I can understand. 
In vain, I have tried to solve the mystery. 
The fox is a very wise animal and tries 
to be friendly, but the rabbit turns a deaf 
ear. His deaf ear is located in his tail. 
The two outward appendages on his head 
which look like ears, are not ears at all, 
in fact they seem to be nothing at all ex- 
cept possibly to assist the rabbit as sails 
when running with the wind, or even in 
tacking. 
The safest way to hunt rabbits is along 
the highway where you can hunt from 
your automobile. By doing this you do 
not have to take any chances, such as you 
do when stalking them. If your rifle 
should jam, or if the wounded rabbit 
should charge, you would have a better 
chance of getting away, for a rabbit is 
not apt to follow a car a great .distance, 
no matter how mad he is. A rabbit does 
not like the smell of a jitney, and neither 
do I. 
I am not much acquainted with domes- 
ticated rabbits, but it has been reported 
to me that it can be done. In fact, a 
friend of mine returned from the east, 
and he reported seeing barnyards filled 
with Holstine, buckskin, and chester- 
white rabbits. It was his opinion that 
they were replacing the hens, on account 
of the variation of the colors of their 
eggs. Personally, I do not believe that it 
will pay to keep rabbits just for laying 
purposes, but for the pleasure of the 
children at Easter time, it is well to keep 
a few on hand all of the time. 
One must never judge the wild rabbits 
by the habits of the domesticated, or Bel- 
gian, breeds. There is no more similarity 
than there is between a gold-fish and a 
rainbow trout. Neither should a man, 
who has a goat, forget that someone is 
watching him. 
J. E. Brownlee, Colorado. 
THE BULL SNAKE 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream : 
I HAVE just read Mr. Carpenter’s arti- 
cle in your January number on a bull 
snake imitating a rattler. I have teased 
several of them to get them to blow, but 
never thought of their imitating any- 
thing until last summer. I saw one 
crossing the road and hurried out of 
my car and headed it off. He showed 
fight from the start and jumped at me 
as soon as I got close. He then backed 
up into a coil with his tail in the mid- 
dle, with 3 or 4 inches of his tail stick- 
( CONTINUED ON PAGE 196) 
The result of a day’s drive of rabbits in Colorado 
