rifle, and the coyote and the dog, that try to run him down. He has two ways of protecting himself against his enemies. One way is to squat when he suspects danger, and fold his ears along his sides. By doing this he often escapes observation, as only his back is exposed, the color of which harmonizes with the brown of the withered grass. The other plan, the one he uses when discovered and pursued, is to create remoteness between himself and his pursuer. In giving his whole attention to this matter, when necessary, he is a stupendous success, and earnest to a fault. When disturbed he unlimbers his long legs, unfurls his ears, and goes off with a bound. He generally stops after running about one hundred yards, and looks back to see if his pursuer is enjoying the chase as much as he thought he would, and then leaves for parts unknown. There are many fast things in the world, from an aeroplane to a note maturing in a bank, but nothing to equal the jack-rabbit. An unfounded rumor gets around pretty lively, but could not keep up with him for two blocks. When an ordinary cur dog tries to expedite a jack-rabbit route he makes a humiliating failure of it. He only gives the rabbit gentle exercise. The latter merely throws up his ears, and, under easy sail, skims leisurely along, tacking occasionally to give the funeral procession time to catch up. But if you want to see velocity, urgent speed, and precipitate haste, in fact, real greased lightning, you have only to turn loose a greyhound in the wake of a jack-rabbit. Pursued by a greyhound he will "let himself out" in a manner that would astonish a prepaid half-rate message. If he is a rabbit that has never had any experience with a greyhound before, he will start off at any easy pace, but as he turns to wink derisively at what he supposed to be an ordinary yellow dog, he realizes that there is force in nature hitherto unknown to him, and his look of astonishment, alarm, and disgust, as he furls his ears and promptly declines the nomination, is amusing. Under such circumstances he goes too fast for the eye to follow his movements, and presents the optical illusion of a streak of jackrabbits a mile and a half long. HIDING HIS FOOD You have doubtless all seen a dog bury a bone in the ground. This is the way he has of saving his food for future use. Squirrels sometimes do the same. One day a beautiful gray squirrel in Lincoln Park, Washington, D. C., evidently having had all he wanted to eat just then, was seen running about with a large peanut in his mouth. He was hunting for a place to hide it. He tried many places, but none seemed to suit him, until he came to the foot of a large elm tree. There, with his tiny front paws, he dug a hole in the ground. Here he deposited the peanut, and carefully covered it up, packing the dirt very securely about it, and pressing it down several times with his nose, while his whole body was bent over in a quiver. Then after covering the place over with some loose litter, bark, and a small round piece of board lying near, so that no one would ever suspect there was a peanut hid there, he ran away, expecting, no doubt, to come back at some future time when he was hungry and dig up his hidden nut and have a good meal. And this he evidently did, for the next day it was gone. SQUIRRELS STORING NUTS FOR BACK of a country schoolhouse in Chemung County, N. Y., was a large pasture in which grew two large chestnut trees. |