Wild Animals at Home Part 13

IX

The Rabbits and their Habits

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If the Wolf may be justly proud of his jaws and the Antelope of his legs, I am sure that the Rabbit should very properly glory in his matchless fecundity. To perfect this power he has consecrated all the splendid energies of his vigorous frame, and he has magnified his specialty into a success that is worth more to his race than could be any other single gift.

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Rabbits are without weapons of defense, and are simple-minded to the last degree. Most are incapable of long-distance speed, but all have an exuberance of multiplication that fills their ranks as fast as foe can thin the line. If, indeed, they did not have several families, several times a year, they would have died out several epochs back.

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There are three marked types of Rabbits in the Rockies--the Cottontail, the Snowshoe, and the Jackrabbit. All of them are represented on the Yellowstone, besides the little Coney of the rocks which is a remote second cousin of the family.

MOLLY COTTONTAIL, THE CLEVER FREEZER

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I have often had occasion to comment on the "freezing" of animals. When they are suddenly aware of a near enemy or confronted by unexpected situations, their habit is to _freeze_--that is, become perfectly rigid, and remain so until the danger is past or at least comprehended.

Molly Cottontail is one of the best "freezers." Whenever she does not know what to do, she does nothing, obeying the old Western rule, "Never rush when you are rattled." Now Molly is a very nervous creature. Any loud, sharp noise is liable to upset her, and feeling herself unnerved she is very apt to stop and simply "freeze." Keep this in mind when next you meet a Cottontail, and get a photograph.

In July, 1902, I tried it myself. I was camped with a lot of Sioux Indians on the banks of the Cheyenne River in Dakota. They had their families with them, and about sundown one of the boys ran into the tepee for a gun, and then fired into the gra.s.s. His little brother gave a war-whoop that their "pa" might well have been proud of, then rushed forward and held up a fat Cottontail, kicking her last kick. Another, a smaller Cottontail, was found not far away, and half a dozen young redskins armed with sticks crawled up, then suddenly let them fly. Bunny was. .h.i.t, knocked over, and before he could recover, a dog had him.

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I had been some distance away. On hearing the uproar I came back toward my own campfire, and as I did so, my Indian guide pointed to a Cottontail twenty feet away gazing toward the boys. The guide picked up a stick of firewood.

The boys saw him, and knowing that another Rabbit was there they came running. Now I thought they had enough game for supper and did not wish them to kill poor Molly. But I knew I could not stop them by saying that, so I said: "Hold on till I make a photo." Some of them understood; at any rate, my guide did, and all held back as I crawled toward the Rabbit. She took alarm and was bounding away when I gave a shrill whistle which turned her into a "frozen" statue. Then I came near and snapped the camera. The Indian boys now closed in and were going to throw, but I cried out: "Hold on! not yet; I want another." So I chased Bunny twenty or thirty yards, then gave another shrill whistle, and got a fourth snap. Again I had to hold the boys back by "wanting another picture." Five times I did this, taking five pictures, and all the while steering Molly toward a great pile of drift logs by the river. I had now used up all my films.

The boys were getting impatient. So I addressed the Cottontail solemnly and gently: "Bunny, I have done my best for you. I cannot hold these little savages any longer. You see that pile of logs over there? Well, Bunny, you have just five seconds to get into that wood-pile. Now git!"

and I shooed and clapped my hands, and all the young Indians yelled and hurled their clubs, the dogs came bounding and Molly fairly dusted the earth.

"Go it, Molly!"

"Go it, dogs!"

"Ki-yi, Injuns!"

The clubs flew and rattled around her, but Molly put in ten feet to the hop and ten hops to the second (almost), and before the chase was well begun it was over; her cotton tuft disappeared under a log; she was safe in the pile of wood, where so far as I know she lived happy ever after.

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THE RABBIT THAT WEARS SNOWSHOES

The Snowshoe Rabbit is found in all parts of the Park, though not in very great numbers. It is called "Snowshoe" on account of the size of its feet, which, already large, are in snow time made larger by fringes of stiff bristles that give the creature such a broad area of support that it can skip on the surface of soft snow while all its kinsmen sink in helplessness.

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Here is the hind foot of a Snowshoe in winter, contrasted with the hind foot of a Jackrabbit that was nearly three times its weight.

Rabbits are low in the scale of intelligence, but they are high enough to have some joy in social life. It always gives one a special thrill of satisfaction when favoured with a little glimpse into the home ways, the games, or social life of an animal; and the peep I had into the Rabbit world one night, though but a small affair, I have always remembered with pleasure, and hope for a second similar chance.

This took place in the Bitterroot Mountains in Idaho, in 1902. My wife and I were out on a pack-train trip with two New York friends. We had seen some rough country in Colorado and Wyoming, but we soon agreed that the Bitterroots were the roughest of all the mountains. It took twenty-eight horses to carry the stuff, for which eighteen were enough in the more southern Rockies.

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The trails were so crooked and hidden in thick woods, that sometimes the man at the rear might ride the whole day, and never see all the horses until we stopped again for the night.

THE TERROR OF THE MOUNTAIN TRAILS

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There were other annoyances, and among them a particularly dangerous animal. The country was fairly stocked with Moose, Elk, Blacktail, Sheep, Goats, Badgers, Skunks, Wolverines, Foxes, Coyotes, Mountain Lions, Lynx, Wolves, Black Bears and Grizzly Bears, but it was none of these that inspired us with fear. The deadly, dangerous creature, the worst of all, was the common Yellow-Jacket-Wasp. These Wasps abounded in the region. Their nests were so plentiful that many were on, or by, the narrow crooked trails that we must follow. Generally these trails were along the mountain shoulder with a steep bank on the upside, and a sheer drop on the other. It was at just such dangerous places that we seemed most often to find the Yellow-Jackets at home. Roused by the noise and trampling, they would a.s.sail the horses in swarms, and then there would be a stampede of bucking, squealing, tortured animals. Some would be forced off the trail, and, as has often happened elsewhere, dashed to their death below. This was the daily danger.

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One morning late in September we left camp about eight, and set off in the usual line, the chief guide leading and the rest of us distributed at intervals among the pack-horses, as a control. Near the rear was the cook, after him a pack-horse with tins and dishes, and last of all myself.

At first we saw no wasps, as the morning was frosty, but about ten the sun had become strong, the air was quite mild, and the wasps became lively. For all at once I heard the dreaded cry, "_Yellow-Jackets_!"

Then in a moment it was taken up by the cook just ahead of me.

"Yellow-Jackets! look out!" with a note almost of terror in his voice.

At once his horse began to plunge and buck. I saw the man of pots clinging to the saddle and protecting his face as best he could, while his mount charged into the bushes and disappeared.

Then "_bzz-z-z-z_" they went at the pot-horse and again the bucking and squealing, with pots going clank, clink, rattle and away.

"_Bzz-z-z-z-z_" and in a moment the dark and raging little terrors came at me in a cloud. I had no time to stop, or get off, or seek another way. So I jerked up a coat collar to save my face, held my head low, and tried to hold on, while the little pony went insane with the fiery baptism now upon him. Plunging, kicking, and squealing he went, and I stuck, to him for one--two--three jumps, but at number four, as I remember it, I went flying over his head, fortunately up hill, and landed in the bushes unhurt, but ready for peace at any price.

It is good old wisdom to "lay low in case of doubt," and very low I lay there, waiting for the war to cease. It was over in a few seconds, for my horse dashed after his fellows and pa.s.sed through the bushes, so that the winged scorpions were left behind. Presently I lifted my head and looked cautiously toward the wasp's-nest. It was in a bank twenty feet away, and the angry swarm was hovering over it, like smoke from a vent hole. They were too angry, and I was too near, to run any risks, so I sank down again and waited. In one or two minutes I peered once more, getting a sight under a small log lying eight or ten feet away. And as I gazed waspward my eye also took in a brown furry creature calmly sitting under the log, wabbling his nose at me and the world about him. It was a young Snowshoe Rabbit.

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BUNNY'S RIDE

There is a certain wild hunter instinct in us all, a wish to capture every wood creature we meet. That impulse came on me in power. There was no more danger from wasps, so I got cautiously above this log, put a hand down at each side, grabbed underneath, and the Rabbit was my prisoner. Now I had him, what was I going to do with him--kill him?

Certainly not. I began to talk to him. "Now what _did_ I catch you for?"

His only reply was a wobble of his nose, so I continued: "I didn't know when I began, but I know now. I want to get your picture." And again the nose wobbled.