Nov. 29, 1913- 
FOREST AND STREAM 
675 
.. FOR .. 
XMAS 
$ 12 ™ 
.. FOR A .. 
$ 25 — 
Hard Wood 
Mission Finish 
Gun Cabinet 
Height, 70 inches. Depth, 12 inches. 
Width, 28 inches. 
If interested , -write for our special Gun Cabinet 
Catalog:. 
Send us your address for our 
illustrated Gun Catalog. 
THE H. H. KIFFE COMPANY 
523 BROADWAY - - - NEW YORK 
Cottontail Sport 
By C. A. BRYAN 
O NE of the distinguished writers in Forest 
and Stream , I think it was Sandy Griswold, 
said there was no sport in the cottontail. 
Far be it from me to set myself against au¬ 
thority, but it maybe that the writer who thus 
libelled the brown coated, white tailed, long eared 
denizen of the woods and fields, has not been 
properly educated in cottontail sport. 
I agree that there is not an element even, of 
sport in thrusting a ferret into a hole that con¬ 
tains a rabbit, and holding a sack over the en¬ 
trance of the burrow, catching the frightened 
animal as it plunges desperately out to escape the 
sinuous beady eyed terror; nor is there much sat¬ 
isfaction in kicking a cottontail out of his “seat” 
in the long grass of the open field, and bowling 
him over at short range with a charge of shot 
that leaves the quarry a mangled, and often min¬ 
gled mass of meat and fur. 
There is, however, much sport to be had 
from bunny if he is pursued in a sportsmanlike 
manner. One of the essentials is a beagle or rab¬ 
bit hound, that will follow a cottontail through 
the devious ways of his flight, and give such 
musical accompaniment to the task as would, 
charm Diana into forsaking and forgetting even 
the suffragette movement, and induce her to cease 
the pursuit of British statesmen, and turn to a 
cottontail chase as relief from the sport militant, 
with its accompaniment of Holloway jail, hunger 
strikes and forced feeding. 
A light snow fell one night last week, not 
enough to make a tracking snow, but its melting 
promised moisture to permit the scent to lay well, 
and enable a dog to follow a track even on the 
leaves, where the scent of a rabbit is about as 
elusive as a cottontail could wish, and in conse¬ 
quence of a combination of weather, desire to be 
out of doors, and a new Stevens twenty-gauge re¬ 
peater, the writer was early at the telephone in 
an endeavor to induce George Smith to join in 
a rabbit hunt. Now George is a boy of about 
seventy-five, and the possessor of as fine a rabbit 
hound as ever gave a cottontail desire to put 
space between itself and a voice that continually 
reminded Bre’r Rabbit to make tracks fast and 
far between, and the result of my endeavor was 
a day of sport, in company with Mr. Smith, and 
Sing, the dog, that may interest even the skeptic 
who says there is no sport in the cottontail. 
Our destination was the timber along Lizard 
creek, about six miles from town, and we were 
soon on the road where we found progress slow 
on account of the mud, but in due time arrived 
at the bridge where we unhitched and blanketed 
the horse, assembled the guns, and took a drink 
from George’s bottle, a Thermos of hot coffee, 
and the battle was on. Sing had been nosing 
around in a small piece of corn by the roadside, 
and as we crossed the road and entered the corn 
she gave voice to her opinion that a cottontail 
had been browsing around in the corn stalks dur¬ 
ing the small hours of the night. It was pleasure 
in itself to see the hound puzzle out the cold 
scent, and follow the devious windings that a 
rabbit makes, when he has all the time there is in 
which to do nothing, and to see her pick up the 
scent and work out the trail, left the opinion in 
my mind that man is not the only animal en¬ 
dowed with gifts. 
Finally after much winding, the trail led to¬ 
ward the road, and we concluded that the rabbit 
had crossed and gone into the brush, but as the 
dog worked toward the fence there was a flash 
of brown from behind a corn hill just in front of 
Sing’s nose, a mighty jump by the dog and the 
first rabbit of the day was snapped up before he 
got started. Old Sing came up to me with the 
rabbit in her mouth, and said as plain as dog talk 
can make it, “here’s your rabbit, they are not so 
much.” 
We then crossed the bridge, entered the tim¬ 
ber, and were scarcely in the woods when another 
rabbit led the way into a dense patch of willows 
and weeds. Now and then we caught sight of the 
rabbit, but only for an instant and not long 
enough for a shot. The dog was a short distance 
away, and coming toward me, when from the 
weeds in my rear a cottontail shot out at top 
speed toward the road. I caught sight of it for 
an instant and risked a snap shot; a white tail 
showed for an instant in the air, and on reach¬ 
ing the spot a bunch of fur showed that some¬ 
thing had happened, but there was no rabbit. 
Sing came along on the trail, but when I tried to 
persuade her to help me find the game, went se¬ 
renely on following the trail of her rabbit, which 
led out across the road and convinced me that 
the one I shot at was not the rabbit the dog was 
following, and going a short distance I came 
upon the cripple and put him out of misery. 
We secured two more in the willow patch, 
but the cover was too dense to afford much sport, 
so we went to the buggy, ate lunch and struck 
into the open timber. 
Long before we reached the top of the hill 
Sing was busy with another rabbit, which ran in 
wide circles, keeping far ahead of the dog, and 
leading her a chase worth witnessing; but the 
hound had seen just such cottontails before, and 
long jumps and swift footing availed nothing. 
Sing stuck to the track and eventually the fast 
goer ran up against the twenty gauge and col¬ 
lapsed. 
Then we had the run of the day. A rabbit 
was started in the woods, took out across a pas¬ 
ture and entered a patch of dense weeds and 
grass, where it ran in short circles and kept the 
dog busy. Finally it ran out of the weeds, 
through the wood lot again and crossing the pas¬ 
ture the second time entered the weed patch. Old 
(Continued on page 676 .) 
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ARTICLES — NEWS — ILLUSTRATIONS 
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