The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-01-21
ANIMALS IN WINTER.
Information Not a Happy State The
Rabbits Alone Fare Well
From the Chicago Times

Superior, Wis, Jan. lathe bears and
the raccoons have at last gone to sleep
Long ago the chipmunks and the wood
ehucks began their Information. The
woodchuck sleeps in burrows in the
ground. the chipmunk in logs. 'coons in
hollow trees, and bears in the cavities
left by roots of fallen trees.
They had to sleep or starve. No grass.
no meat, no tasteful food could they find
in the deep snow left by the first howl
ing blizzard of the year which piled more
than two feet Of it on a level and in the
burnings tumbled heaps and drifted ten
times as deep. The beech nuts were COW
cred with a mass of snow.
1t is a comfortless kind Of senseless-
ness that is called Information, because
there is drowsy feeling Of the cold
and a part awakening when warm days
come and the animals rise and wander
forth seeking food that is difficult to OBJ
tain and then are driven back to their
beds, hungry and thin, to sleep again
till the storms pass and once more they
can go forth. This is why the bear looks
for his shadow in February, and why
the woodchuck comes out TO peer around.
He can no longer sleep in his hole. and
hunger drives him forth till a kindly
nature sends a long sleep to his eyes.
1t is on these ramblcs that the bear be
comes the vicious beast so often told
about. 1t is then that he kills a sheep or
robs a pigpen.
This great storm means death to many
deer, for when deep snow comes woods
men will strap on their snowshOes and
go to the yards, and with unsparins hands
strike down the buck. the doe. and the
yearling fawn, leaving too often great piles
Of flesh to freeze and become the food
of foxes martens, and other flesh eaters.
Down into the snow will dive the part
ridge and deep though IL is, a fox should
one come that way, will dig there, and
only a few feathers viii tell the tale i'm
spring time. Likewise will the spiteful
weasel, the mink, and the fighting mar
ten live high on partridge breasts. Then,
too, If a rain should come atop this fluffy
snow crust would form over it, and the
partridge would peck in vain to reach the
air above; while the deer would cut their
legs fleeing, perhaps from stray wolves,
but surely from hounds turned loose by
woodsmen and guides to roam at Will
through the woods.
To one beast, though, n snow means
great amount of food. 1t is the wood
mans rabbit. lie is a great shy crea-
ture, three times as large as the simple
little rabbit Of Long Island, not to be
kicked out of brush heaps, and boWled
4
for hours by dogs. and at last shot while
going like a deer, in long, graceful bounds.
No. shot will do, but the experienced
woodsman uses No Oftener for so strong
is this rabbit that he runs rods with broken
ribs. His food is the buds Of trees. Two
feet of snow lifts him into another region
almost, for seldom do the birches branch
so low as to give the rabbit a chance at
the buds when the ground is bare, and
there are other trees as well that give
in this way to this game beast. He is
too swift of foot to be run down by fox or
wildcat. though both stalk him. And he
is a fighter of his kind. The bucks draw
blood often in their love quarrels
The snowstorm is likely to prove fatal
to much game but il is TO be hoped that
the birds viii not die as they did last
winter Seldom have partridges been 50
scarce and wild in the Adirondack region.
It is well that the birds are by some in
stinct so wild after these thinning outs
that but few are killed. and these by long,
difficult shots