Well, he attempts to go
through, stopping a minute to eat that favorite morsel; he thrusts his
head into the noose; the trap is sprung, and the elastic pole twitches
the poor wayfarer up by the neck. It is rather barbarous business, this
snaring innocent rabbits; and I should much rather my young friends
would adopt either of a hundred other sports of winter, than this.
[Illustration: THE RABBIT TRAP.]
[Illustration: THE RABBIT.]
The father of a family of rabbits is said to exercise a very respectable
discipline among the children. Would it not be well for some of our
fathers and mothers to attend school, a quarter or so, in one of their
villages? The father among rabbits is a patriarch. Somebody who owned
several tame ones, tells us that whenever any of them quarreled, the
father instantly ran among them, and at once peace and order were
restored. "If he caught any one quarreling, he always punished him as an
example to the rest. Having taught them to come to me," says this man,
"with the call of a whistle, the instant this signal was given, I saw
this old fellow marshal up his forces, sometimes taking the lead, and
sometimes making them file off before him."
The Hare.
Probably most of my readers are so well acquainted with natural history,
that they do not need to be told that the hare and the rabbit are very
like, in their appearance, as well as in most of their habits.
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