Bennington semi-weekly banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 1894-1902, 1894-11-23
THE CUNNING HARE.
INTERESTING THINGS TOLD OF THE
NlMBLE CoTToNTAIL.

|
His Home-.we Call Him Rabbit, but
We Are Told That's a Mistake.
"There are many curious things about
our common, everyday fleet, little gray
rabbit that few people outside of rabbit
hunting localities know anything about"
hid an observant sportsman who lives
where this popular game is plentiful.
Zone thing that they don't know is that
the animal we call rabbit isn't rabbit at
all. There is no such thing as akwild rab-
bit in this country Even the jack rabbit
isn't one. The shy, gray coated little fell
low that we all know is a hare. There is a
big difference between hare and rabbit
The rabbit burrows in the ground, and the
hurrow is its home and refuge. The hare
doesn't burroS. 1t fashions itself a coZy
nest in the long, wild grass or among
: sheltering punches Of flexible weeds or be-
meath some protecting bush.
1.-The hare shows that he has no little
cunning in many ways The moment he
is started by the dogs he will make for ris-
| ing ground if he can and will avoid soft
ground or soil that has moisture in it, He
breaks for an uphill run for the reason
that, his hind legs being so much longer
than his fore legs, he can command a le-
verage from them in going up the rise that
enables him to maintain his speed with
ease, whereas the dogs having no such adj
vantage, necessarily are hampered in their
run on ascending ground. The hare can
| go up hill much faster than he can go
down. just because he does not use the
| force of his hind legs on a descent, or it
would throw him heels over head, while
down hill run is advantageous to the dogs.
So a hare never leads chase on descend
ing ground. And the sleeper the run up
hill is the better he likes it, The reason
he avoids soft or wet ground is that his
| feet are covered with thick stockings of
fur which stick to the yielding soil or
moist surface and delay his flight while
the smooth, elastic padding of the dogs
feet enables the pursuer to get over that
sort of ground with great facility. A
course can't he too rough to suit the hare,
but it must be dry At the same time he
can swim like a duck, and will plunge
into and swim q wide stream if one hap
pens to lie in his way when flying before
dog or fox, but he doesn't know enough to
seek for water to throw his enemy off the
! scent, as the deer does.
Tho hare has many strategic tricks.
He will run in pastures among sheep,
| jump on the top of stone walls and follow
them for long distances and even force Ia
fresh hare from its form to 60 on with the
race, following the new starter a few rods
and then lcaping aside to the shelter of
some bush or brush pile, while the dogs
keep on after the fresh hare, but as a rule
the silly little cottontail will persist in
doubling again and again over the same
course, which is sure to end in his undo
ing.
1.-THE distance q hare can cover in its
leaps when pressed is simply astounding.
| / have measured leaps in the snow-the
hare having been startled by dogs-.that
| were 10 feet in the clear, and there is good
authority for Il hare S leap that covered 20
! feet. He takes advantage of this great
ability in lcaping to throw any probable
pursuing enemy off his scent and never
goes home in direct line. He passes to
one side of his nest and stops opposite TO
! it at the greatest distance that he can COW
| er at a leap. Then he squats doubling his
| flexible backbone into an animate spiral
| spring and his stout, long hind legs snap
out like Il Catapult. He jumps high in the
air and judges of space so nicely that he
never fails to alight squarcly on or near
his well concealed form.
81 shall never forget how l came to dis
cover this trick of the hare. One winter,
for some reason, the little cOttontails We're
very scarce in Pike county. 1t seemed that
there were not enough left to make "a de-
cent tracking on the snow. One day, much
to my delight, came onto track that
led from laurel patch, i'm fresh falling
of snow, toward an old clearing, more than
a mile away. followed it, and it took me
in n Circuitous course that made the dis
lance to the clearing nearly three miles
1t went over "a stone wall and into what
had been in old times a buckwhcat field.
Ten feet from the wall the track came to
an end as suddenly as if the little animal
that had made it had been taken up in a
whirlwind and carried away There
wasn't another mark on the snow in all
that field. To say that was amazed is
putting it mildly. l couldn't study the
mystery out. The field was bare, with the
exception of a clump of bushes here and
there and the stub of chestnut tree, long
since decayed and with hollow in its top
some eight feet from the ground This old
stump was something like 20 feet from
where the track ended. 1t was toward
CNtIllllSi anu IllC SlIutlIlOIl was 81 oOLu VI
spookish that 1 took to feeling rather
Gravity and took a short cut for home.
But that mysterious track bothered
me, and | determined to find out what it
meant if could. So next morning early
1 went back to the old field. My wonder
was deepened when l found another track
starting in where the other one had ended
and leading back in the direction from
which the first one had come. After think
ing the matter over 1 made up my mind
that the easiest way to solve the mystery
was to stay right there and watch. l took
position behind tree on the edge Ofsthe
field, commanding full view of it, and
waited | waited three hours and then
was rewarded by seeing the hare Looping
leisurely toward the stone wall, along the
old trail. The little fellow mounted the
wall and came on to where the track had
ended the day before. There he stopped
crouChed in the snow for moment and
then shot through the air like a bullet and
pumped square in the top of the hollow
chestnut stump. l understood it all then
That smart cottontail had adopted that
ruso to throw off any pursucr from his
hiding place. When he left the stump, he
made the leap back again to the end of the
trail, thus keeping the space between that
and the stub untroddCn by any tclltalc
footprints. admired the strategy of the
fpl gf,lr,'t