The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1921-01-31
Rabbit Scalps
Numerous in
Rockford Drive

ABOUT l5V OF the braves went out
| for a rabbit drive west of Rockford
Sunday morning and there in the
grand and solemn solitudes of the
sagebrush, they formed a phalanx to
attack the bunnies. The men were
all fresh and vigorous having been
transported to the scene by q trans
fer truck and various other motor
lied vehicles and as fast as the gen.
erals got them into line they were
rearing to go.
Most of them were armed with
rudimentary weapons, sticks and
stones and one thing and another
such as the cave men used and they
did rejoice much that they were get
ting that close to nature. None of
them pursued the nature notion far
enough to disrobe and chase rabbits
in his birthday suit, but they all
chased rabbits to suit themselves or
somebody else.
They played a mean trick on the
rabbits, driving mostly from one d.
rectiOn and in the direction of line
of posts which had strip of woven
wire attached thru which the bun
MES could not run. The little bunnies
and the big jack rabbits with all the
intermediate sizes retreating before
the phalanx of the cave men bumped
their noses into the woven wire and
then sat back looking over their
shoulders and working their should
ers up and down and back and forth
to cure the bruise. No matter which
way they ran they met cave men or
bumped into wire again. In the
closing hour there was an optical
demonstration of mans inhumanity
to bunnies and some 500 or 600 were
slain.
There were no fatalities among the
cavemen Notwithstanding Merrill
Boyle and various other fellows pos
sessed of modern weapons were there
ready for single shots, pot shots,
flock shots or shots directed at rab-
bits coming or going directly forward
and away from the enemy.
Rabbit drives are quite a popular
sport with the present generation
and the less snow there is the more
the rabbits enjoy it. Rabbit drives
began in this locality about the year
1895, but they had been tested out
long before that in other places. We
don't know when they we're invented,
but the earliest popular movement
against rabbit, of which we have any
record, is handed down to us py
Strabo, the historian, who died in the
year A. D. 21. He relates that the
people of Majorca and Minorca suf-
fered the rabbits to so multiply
among them that they became very
destructive to the seeds and herbs
and plants so that their crops could
no longer be depended upon and
they applied to the ruler of all that
county above and below the Pyrenes
to set aside some new country that
they might go to settle in and there
by get away from the hares which
were so rapidly shutting off their
means of subsistence. Rabbit drives
had evidently not been invented or
had not been operated with sufficient
diligence or these people would not
have had to leave their homes seek
ing new settlements.
The people of Rockford are duly
grateful to their friends from other
parts Of the country, who responded
to their invitation to come out and
help them fight the enemy. Consid-
erable damage is being done to hay
stacks in the winter and If they are
not killed off the damage to crops
will be serious in the growing season.