The Canton advocate. [volume] (Canton, D.T. [S.D.]) 1877-1897, 1878-04-30

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the door. may be open for any one else
who may also desire to use it.
The Jackass Rabbit.
From the San francisco Chronicle.
The clerk of the United States district
court of Utah. having an idle hour on
his hands at Beaver City, recently sat
down, and in burst of inspiration pen
ned this essay on the we'll known hare
of the Pacific coast, popularity named as
above on account of his exaggerated
ears:
I've been over good deal Of that kind
of country that grows the jackass rabbit.
He is a serious, thoughtful appearing
animal anywhere, and in Utah is real
solemn. The territory produces large,
flourishing rabbit, but be wears counte-
nance like good many of the saints; it
SAYS: II wish hadn't to come" This
rabbit is rightly named. He has the
gray color, mixed with black, and the
eternal solemnness of the old, original
edition of the ass, which Noah had the
poor taste to preserve. The most no
ticeablc trait in his disposition is to sit
down. If any one comes on him sud
denly and sees him before he leaps, he is
sitting. If seen at distance, quiet and
giving himself up to sweet feverie, he is
sitting down. Should he have occasion
to rise from his seat and run only fifty
yards, he is tired at the end of it, and
he sits down.
The iackass rabbit has sociability, but
it is very thin. 1t is not probable that
he would leave a comfortable seat and
20 few feet for the sake of company.
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
holding social converse and sort of tea
party. 1t is the custom Tor all to take
seats at these parties. Now and then
some little matter of courtesy will call
one to his feet, 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 flee
that thinks he amounts to something
and every bench-legged flee thinks he
does-chasing a jackass rabbit up hill;
for the rabbit, when once compelled to
SO from his seat, recognizes no differ
ence in his speed between uphill 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 dignifed, sensible dog rush
after rabbit, have his course crossed by
second rabbit, take frantically after
the second, then have his new course
crossed by third rabbit, turn madly
after the third, come on the fourth cross
ing rabbit and quit in disgust. Some
times person will jump up rabbit and
think he Immediately sees NUMBER of
them running, when it is only the gray
fishes OF the same rabbit passing through
the sage-brush vistas.
The increase in the family of jackass
rabbits is something overwhelming.
Figures 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 admission
fee. Some people like jackass rabbits as
dish; but to me he is not pleasing in
this form except in high state of hun.
griness, when the stomach is no longer
guided by reason. There is something
touching in the death Of the rabbit.
The shrieks of q puppy whose tail has
been trod on make one almost feel a por-
ton Of the pain himself and the squawks
of the 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 sympathetic
chord; but more pathetic still is the
wall of the dying jack-rabbit, so helpless,
50 hopeless and plaiDtive it attunes ones
every emotion to pity. Jackass rabbits
resemble potatoes in one respect, they
are not all the same size. / probably
saw the biggest jackass rabbit that ever
was. It was my habit in one locality
to pass a certain thicket several times a
week while bird-hunting. One day I
shot at a rabbit on the edge of the
thicket; the bird-shot peppered him and
he fled in astonishment. On another
day, at the same spot, I shot second one
in the same way. A day or two after
ward q third one was shot there, and his
gait was so hating that I caught him.
He was very much magnified. I had
been shooting the same rabbit for a
week. When I arrived at the "beauti-
full gate" which so often swung open at
Sunday school concerts, if there is any
one seemingly bad act in my whole life
which shall not, in my interview with
St. Peter, be able to explain away, it is
the shooting of that rabbit for a whole
week. feel weak on that.