San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1878-04-20
The Jackass Rabbit.

sat down, and in burst of inspirat,os
penned this essay on the well knovs
hare of the Pacific coast, popular,r
nicknamed as above on account Of n,
exaggerated ears:
I've been over good deal of tb..
kind of country which grows the iacL
ass rabbit. He is serious, thoughtful.
looking animal anywhere, and in Utah
real solemn. The Territory produces
a larger, furnishing jackass rabbit, but
he wears a countenance like good
many of the Saints; it says: 81 wish 7
hadn't to come" This rabbit is ripbt,v
named. He has the grass color, marx.
ed with black, the long ears and the
eternal solemnness of the old, original
edition of the ass, which Noah had tbo
poor taste to preserve. The most mott.
ceatle trait in his disposition is to sit
down. If any one come on him sud.
denly and sees him before he leaps, he
is sitting. If seen at a distance, still
and giving himself up to sweet reverje
he is sitting down. Should he have or.
casioned to rise from his seat and run
only fifty yards, he is tired at the end Of
it and he sits down.
The jackass-rabbit has sociability, but
it is very thin. 1t is not probable that
he would leave good comfortable seat
and 60 few feet for the sake of com.
pany. Yet occasionally several of them
may be seen together when they think
no one is watching them. At such times
they are quiet and undemonstrative-
seem to be having social converse and
sort of tea party. 1t is the custom for
all to take seats at these parties. Now
and then some little matter of courtesy
will call one to his feet, but when it is
attended to he sits down without delay.
1t makes one feel at peace with the
world and kindly toward himself to see
bench-legged fee that thinks he
amounts to something-and every
bench-legged flee thinks he does-chas-
ing a jackass rabbit up hill; for the
rabbit; when once compelled to arise
from his seat, recognizes no difference
in his speed between up hill and down.
Ones thoughts are not so much on the
race as the emptiness of this: Where
there's will there's way.
I've seen a dignified, sensible dog
rush after a rabbit, have his course
crossed by second, take frantically
after the second, then have his new
course crossed by third rabbit, turn
madly after the third, come on the
fourth crossing rabbit and quit in dis
gust. Sometimes person will jump
up rabbit and think he Immediately
sees number of them running, whenit
is only the gray flashes of the same rab.
bit passing through the sage-brush
vistaS.
The increase in the family of jackass
rabbits issomething overwhelming. Fig.
ures are hardly equal to the occasion.
1t is something like the increase in the
patronage of place of public amuse'
ment when it ceases to charge admis-
sion fee. Some people like jackass
rabbits as dish; but TO me in this form
he is not pleasing except in high state
of hungrlness, when the stomach is no
longer guided by reason. There is
something touching in the death Of
rabbit. The shrieks of puppy whose
tail has been trod on make one almost
feel portion of the pain himself; and
the squawks of hen, rudely torn BY
the thief from her roost'
as they are heard growing
gradually weaker, and finally dying
away in the distance, strike a sympa'
thetic chord; but more pathetic still Is
the wall of the dying jack-rabbit, SO
hopeless, so helpless and plaintive it az
tunes ones every emotion to pity. JACK
ass rabbits resemble potatoes in one
respect, they are not all the same slze'
1 probably saw the biggest jackass rap
bit that ever was. 1t was my habit In
one locality to pass a certain thlcks'
several times a week while bird-hunting'
One day shot at rabbit on the edss
of the thicket; the bird shot peppereu
him and he fled in astonishment. vi
another day, at the same spot, l shot .
second one in the same way. A dayo
two afterward a third one was snO'
there, and his gait was so halting tna
1 caught him. He was very much nAs'
nified. / had been shooting the ssue
rabbi. for week. When | arrive .