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THE STORY OF THE RABBIT. 
A farmer had captured a young rabbit in a furrow, and was proceeding 
4o mark it by notching its ears, when he was interrupted in his work by 
the mother, which flew at him with singular courage, and struck so fiercely 
with her feet that she tore his hands rather severely. Finding that she could 
not release her child, she stood within a few feet of the captor, and waited 
patiently until he liberated the little rabbit, with which she went off. 
The very long and powerful hind-legs of the rabbit enable it to make 
prodigious bounds, and to cover a considerable space of ground at every 
leap. The hinder limbs are, indeed, of such great proportionate length that 
the animal does not walk, but proceeds by a series of hops or leaps. 
Mark Twain gives a graphic account of the jack-rabbit, one of the mem¬ 
bers of the hare family, in '‘Roughing It.” "As the sun was going down,” 
he says, “we saw the first specimen of an animal known familiarly over 
two thousand miles of mountain and desert—from Kansas clear to the 
Pacific Ocean—as the 'jackass-rabbit.’ He is well named. He is just like 
any other rabbit, except that he is from one-third to twice as large, has 
longer legs in proportion to his size, and has the most preposterous ears that 
ever were mounted on any creature but a jackass. 
“When he is sitting quiet, thinking about his sins, or is absent-minded, 
or unapprehensive of danger, his majestic ears project above him conspicu¬ 
ously; but the breaking of a twig will scare him nearly to death, and then 
he tilts his ears back gently, and starts for home. All you can, see then, 
for the next minute, is his long form stretched out straight, and 'streaking 
it’ through the low sage-bushes, head erect, eyes right, and ears just canted 
to the rear, but showing you where the animal is, just the same as if he 
carried a jib. 
“Now and then fie makes a marvelous spring with his long hind-legs, 
high over the stunted sage-bushes, and scores a leap that would make a 
horse envious. Presently he comes down to a long graceful 'lope,’ and 
shortly he mysteriously disappears. He has crouched behind a sage-bush 
and will sit there and listen and tremble until you get within six feet of 
him, when he will get under way again. 
“But one must shoot at the creature once, if he wishes to see him throw 
his heart into his heels, and do the best he knows how. He is frightened 
clear through now, and he lays his long ears down on his back, straightens 
himself out like a yardstick every spring he makes, and scatters miles behind 
him with an easy indifference that is enchanting. 
“Our party made this specimen 'bump himself,’ as the conductor said. 
