176 
CREATURES OF MYSTERY 
The Southern coachwhip, too, is a rather accomplished 
whistler, and employs his art in calling his or her mate to their 
rescue in event danger threatens. The note he uses proves 
quite a convenience, also, in bagging his game. A reliable in¬ 
formant once related an interesting incident which serves to 
prove such statement as an established fact. When a mere lad 
he learned that rabbits delighted in gathering to his father’s 
wheat field in the cool of the day to nibble the tender blades 
of half-developed grain. While the rabbits were thus engaged 
he would stalk them with the skill of the Indians, armed with 
his little 22 cal. rifle. Now, his father had warned him more 
than once about treading down his heading wheat, so that on 
this occasion he was creeping so silently that he could have 
heard a leaf fall. No sooner was he completely hidden in the 
tall wheat than he distinctly heard someone whistle nearby. 
The call was short and shrill—“shreet.” He reasoned that it 
was his father spying upon his activities so lay motionless for 
a long time. As soon as he made the slightest rustle among 
the wheat the call was repeated. He followed the direction of 
the call until he came upon a small pine tree with branches all 
the way to the ground. A large coachwhip was lying his full 
length among the boughs, keeping an eye open for what he 
believed to be rabbits making the rustling noise in the wheat. 
Now, this incident brings to mind an art practiced by a 
darkey companion of my boyhood days. The two of us would 
be walking through the woodland, guns on shoulders, when 
suddenly a large cotton-tail rabbit would jump out of the wire- 
grass and go bounding away for the dense underbrush. The 
first time such incident ever came within my experience I would 
have called it an utter loss, since the rabbit was within ten feet 
of the briery underbrush when the old darkey uttered a very 
short, shrill whistle, and to my complete surprise the rabbit 
stopped in his tracks, turning his head from right to left, point¬ 
ing his long ears toward all points of the compass, thus giving 
my hunter companion time to bring his gun into play. Just 
another example of the human family adopting the practices of 
the wild creatures with good results. 
Another informant confirms the conclusions reached above 
