The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-02-18
THE RABBITS CLEFT LIP.
Forgot to Watch the Moon, Let Brer
Fox Lick 1t, and Was Punished

Forgot to Watch the Moon, Let Brer
Fox Lick 1t, and Was Punished
New York, Feb. SYSTEMATICALLY tbers
is a distinction betwixt rabbits and hares
although both belong to the genus Il.
pus To the lay mind they are much ,b.
same. Both are grass-eaters, afraid ..
their own shadows, with short tails ver[-
soft coarish fur, and deeply cleft upper
lips.
This is how the darkeys account for
the cleft. In the beginning, they say tbs
Lord made the rabbit near the first If
His creating. and set him to watch otbe-
things as they were made. After awhile
He formed the moon, gilded it beautiful
and set it up beside tree to dry. The
rabbit had charge of it, but fell NOD
ding, and let Brer Fox slip in and begin
licking off the gold This angered me
Deity. who flung His stick at the sleepv-
head with such force 1t buried itself in
his upper lip. Then by way of punish
ment it was ordained that the mark
should descend through all the rabbit
generations. The dark places on the
moon of course are the marks of Brer
FoXs tongue.
Rabbits are known otherwise as comics
witness the familiar line of the Scotch
psalms
THE comics are a feeble folk"
fGeDle dS tnGy are lLty constitute
menace to things ever so much more pow
erful, even to man himself, through their
faculty of growing and spreading. That
has been demonstrated over and over BY
the rabbit plague of Australia. Everybody
has heard how d homesick colonial turn
ed loose a few pairs in a rabbitleSs land
and how within few years, the pairs
had multiplied until they devoured every
green thing and seriously threatened the
raising of sheep. The plague is not yet
wholly abated, although the government
and the flock masters together have spent
good many million dollars, Trapping,
shooting, poisoning, even the establish
ment of canning factories have only SUIT
feed to keep the feeble folk moderately in
check.
"Timid Wat" as English folk call him.
is voracious feeder. He grazes closer
even than a sheep, and like the sheep
delights to season his grasses with ten
der bark and buds. Curiously enough
when forage is most plenty, from April
to October, he is leanest and lankest,
unfit for eating If full grown, but deli
cately toothesome if young. The minute
frost falls he begins to fatten. Three
nights of 1t put him in prime condition.
He seldom feeds then save at night.
Indeed that is his favorite feeding time
throughout the most part of the year.
From March to mid-May he prefers the
earliest morning in which to ravage gar
dens, or raven through budding clover
All winter long he keeps fat and
saucy, nibbhng buds and bark, and
searching the desolate conf1elds for
over looked nubbins. or grazing off the
tenderest stalks of springing winter
wheat He haunts orchards, too, not only
for scattered apples, but to nip low hanging
boughs, and to girdle young trees. I'm
checked he will quickly and surely destroy
a whole newly-set orchard. Indeed, until
he tDar hard and thick he is
constant danger.
He is even a greater pest to the gar
den. Early peas, beets, potato slips, ne
devours in a night. Unless. indeed, the
gardener has been wise enough to try
homeopathic prevention. That is to say,
unless as his peas and beets peeped above
ground, he killed rabbit, tore it to pieces
in a tub of water, then trailed a swab wet
in the bloody liquid all around the plot.
Timid Wat has evidently mighty keen
nose He will not pass the bloody barrier
until there falls a hard rain. Then, OF
course, it needs TO be renewed. Similarly
orchards are protected by running the
trunks two feet up with a piece of fresh
rabbit skin.
Rabbit mothers pluck soft down from
their own breasts to line the earthen bur-
rows in which they rear their young.
There are four to six of these in litter
and from six to eight litters year. Like
kittens the young rabbits are blind at
birth, but inside a week they get use Of
eyes and limbs, and in fortnight are
frisking about, seeing life on their own ac-
count They begin to Craze as soon as
they leave the nest which is nearly al
WAYS exposed, and but few inches under
ground.
Snowfall develops in Brer Rabbit a GU
rious weather instinct. If he hops about
browsing and frisking you may be sue
there will come out a very few inches; il
he crouches snug In a grasstuft, then look
out for at least foot AS he crouches, he
moves gently back and forth, now little
on this side, now on that Thus he shapes
for himself a snow-chamber a little big
ger than his own body. BY and by the
deepening snow arches 1t over, but his
warm breath melts tiny hole in the roof,
thus preventing suffocation. Sometimes 1t
is two days before the furry occupant
leaves this refuge. By that time the snow
is commonly cruSted over hard enough 70
bear his weight.
When snow lies thus, rabbit hunters
look close for the breathing holes. Once
found there are two ways OPEN One, the
not hunters, is to fall fiat upon the hole
and crap Brer Rabbit as he bursts up
through the snow, swing him thrice around
above the head, then knock out his brains
The other, the sportsman'S, is to rout out
the cotton-tail but give him chance for
his life never slipping a dog in chase
until he has a fair thirty yards start. Both
are practiced so successfully, every snowy
winter it is a slothful farm house indeed
anywhere in the rabbit country, which
does not have rabbits by the dozen, TO
broh or stew or smother.