teeth to his enemy; he is not a fighter. He can run, and he knows it;
legs are his salvation, and he must have room to limber them. If he
has to fight, then give him the open, not a hole; for it is to be a
kangaroo kicking match, and a large ring is needed. He had as well
surrender himself at once as to run into a hole that has only one
opening.
During the cold, snowy weather the rabbits usually leave the bare
fields for the woods, though the older and wiser ones more frequently
suffer the storms than risk the greater danger of such a move. When
pressed by hunger or hounded hard, they often take to a rail-pile,
and sometimes they grow so bold as to seek hiding under a barn or
house. One young buck lived all winter in the wood-pile of one of my
neighbors, becoming so tame that he fed with the chickens.
[Illustration: "Bunny, meantime, is watching just inside the next
brier-patch."]
The nearest approach that a rabbit makes to a house is his "squat,"
or form. This is simply a sitting-place in the fields or along the
woods, that he will change every time he is thoroughly frightened out
of it. Undisturbed he will stay in this squat for months at a time.
Occasionally a rabbit will have two or three squats located over his
range, each one so placed that a wide view on every side may be had.
If it is along the woods, then he sits facing the open fields, with
his ears laid back toward the trees. He can hear as far as he can see,
and his nose tells him who is coming up the wind sooner than either
eyes or ears.
It is cold, lonely living here in the winter. But everybody, except
the mice and little birds, are enemies, his only friends being
his wits and legs. In the long run, wits and legs are pretty safe
insurance. "He who fights and runs away will live to fight another
day," is Bunny's precept--and it works well; he still thrives.
The squat is a cold place. The sky is its roof, and its only
protection is the tuft of grass, the stone, or the stump beside which
it is placed. Bunny may change to the lee or windward side, as suits
him, during a storm; but usually he keeps his place and lies close
to the ground, no matter how the wind blows, or how fiercely falls
the rain and snow. I have frequently started them from their squats
in bleak, wind-swept fields, when the little brown things were
completely snowed under.
There is great individuality among all animals, and though the rabbits
look as much alike as peas, they are no exception to the rule. This
personality is especially shown in their whimsical fancies for certain
squats. Here, within sight of the house and the dog, an old rabbit
took up her abode on a big, flat rail in the corner of the fence.
Of course no hawk or owl could touch her here, for they dared not
swoop between the rails; the dog and cat could scent her, but she
had already whipped the cat, and she had given Calamity so many long
runs that the hound was weary of her. The strategic value of such a
situation is plain: she was thus raised just above the level of the
field and commanded every approach. Perhaps it was not whim, but
wisdom, that led to this selection.
I knew another, a dwarf rabbit, that always got into a bare or plowed
field and squatted beside a brown stone or clod of earth. Experience
had taught him that he looked like a clod, and that no enemy ever
plagued him when he lay low in the brown soil.
[Illustration: "The squat is a cold place."]
One summer I stumbled upon a squat close along the public road.
Cart-loads of trash had been dumped there, and among the debris was a
bottomless coal-scuttle. In the coal-scuttle a rabbit made his squat.
Being open at both ends, it sheltered him beautifully from sun and
rain. Here he sat, napping through the day, watching the interesting
stream of passers-by, himself hidden by the rank weeds and grass. When
discovered by a dog or boy, he tripped out of one of his open doors
and led the intruder a useless run into the swamp.
At one time my home was separated from the woods by only a
clover-field. This clover-field was a favorite feeding-ground for the
rabbits of the vicinity. Here, in the early evening, they would gather
to feed and frolic; and, not content with clover, they sometimes went
into the garden for a dessert of growing corn and young cabbage.
Take a moonlight night in autumn and hide in the edge of these woods.
There is to be a rabbit party in the clover-field. The grass has
long been cut and the field is clean and shining; but still there is
plenty to eat. The rabbits from both sides of the woods are coming.
The full moon rises above the trees, and the cottontails start over.
Now, of course, they use the paths which they cut so carefully the
longest possible way round. They hop leisurely along, stopping now and
then to nibble the sassafras bark or to get a bite of wintergreen,
even quitting the path, here and there, for a berry or a bunch of
sweet wood-grass.
"Stop a moment; this won't do! Here is a side-path where the briers
have grown three inches since they were last cut off. This path must
be cleared out at once," and the old buck falls to cutting. By the
time he has finished the path a dozen rabbits have assembled in the
clover-field. When he appears there is a _thump_, and all look up;
some one runs to greet the new-comer; they touch whiskers and smell,
then turn to their eating.
The feast is finished, and the games are on. Four or five of the
rabbits have come together for a turn at hop-skip-and-jump. And such
hop-skip-and-jump! They are professionals at this sport, every one of
them. There is not a rabbit in the game that cannot leap five times
higher than he can reach on his tiptoes, and hop a clean ten feet.
[Illustration: "The limp, lifeless one hanging over the neck of that
fox."]
Over and over they go, bounding and bouncing, snapping from their
marvelous hind legs as if shot from a spring-trap. It is the greatest
jumping exhibition that you will ever see. To have such legs as these
is the next best thing to having wings.
Right in the thick of the fun sounds a sharp _thump! thump!_ Every
rabbit "freezes." It is the stamp of an old buck, the call, _Danger!
danger!_ He has heard a twig break in the woods, or has seen a soft,
shadowy thing cross the moon.
As motionless as stumps squat the rabbits, stiff with the tenseness of
every ready muscle. They listen. But it was only a dropping nut or a
restless bird; and the play continues.
They are chasing each other over the grass in a game of tag. There go
two, round and round, tagging and re-tagging, first one being "it" and
then the other. Their circle widens all the time and draws nearer to
the woods. This time round they will touch the bush behind which we
are watching. Here they come--there they go; they will leap the log
yonder. Flash! squeak! scurry! Not a rabbit in the field! Yes; one
rabbit--the limp, lifeless one hanging over the neck of that fox
trotting off yonder in the shadows, along the border of the woods!
The picnic is over for this night, and it will be some time before the
cottontails so far forget themselves as to play in this place again.
It is small wonder that animals do not laugh. They have so little
play. The savage seldom laughs, for he hunts and is hunted like a
wild animal, and is allowed so scant opportunity to be off guard that
he cannot develop the power to laugh. Much more is this true of the
animals. From the day an animal is born, instinct and training are
bent toward the circumvention of enemies. There is no time to play, no
chance, no cause for laughter.
The little brown rabbit has least reason of all to be glad. He is
utterly inoffensive, the enemy of none, but the victim of many. Before
he knows his mother he understands the meaning of _Be ready! Watch!_
He drinks these words in with his milk. The winds whisper them; the
birds call them; every leaf, every twig, every shadow and sound, says:
_Be ready! Watch!_ Life is but a series of escapes, little else than
vigilance and flight. He must sleep with eyes open, feed with ears
up, move with muffled feet, and, at short stages, he must stop, rise
on his long hind legs, and listen and look. If he ever forgets, if he
pauses one moment for a wordless, noiseless game with his fellows, he
dies. For safety's sake he lives alone; but even a rabbit has fits of
sociability, and gives way at times to his feelings. The owl and the
fox know this, and they watch the open glades and field-edges. They
must surprise him.
The barred owl is quick at dodging, but Bunny is quicker. It is the
owl's soft, shadow-silent wings that are dreaded. They spirit him
through the dusk like a huge moth, wavering and aimless, with dangling
dragon-claws. But his drop is swift and certain, and the grip of those
loosely hanging legs is the very grip of death. There is no terror
like the ghost-terror of the owl.
[Illustration: "His drop is swift and certain."]
The fox is feared; but then, he is on legs, not wings, and there are
telltale winds that fly before him, far ahead, whispering, _Fox, fox,
fox!_ The owl, remember, like the wind, has wings--wings that are
faster than the wind's, and the latter cannot get ahead to tell of
his coming. Reynard is cunning. Bunny is fore-sighted, wide awake,
and fleet of foot. Sometimes he is caught napping--so are we all; but
if in wits he is not always Reynard's equal, in speed he holds his
own very well with his enemy. Reynard is nimble, but give the little
cottontail a few feet handicap in a race for life, and he stands a
fair chance of escape, especially in the summer woods.
When the hounds are on his trail the rabbit saves his legs by
outwitting his pursuers. He will win a long distance ahead of them,
and before they overtake him he will double on his track, approaching
as near as he dare to the dogs, then leap far aside upon a log, into
a stream, or among the bushes, and strike out in a new direction,
gradually making back toward the starting-place. He rises on his
haunches to listen, as he goes along, and before the dogs have again
picked up the trail, he has perhaps had time to rest and lunch.
If it were a matter of dogs only, life would be just full enough of
excitement to be interesting. He can double, balk, and mix trails on
them, and enjoy it. They are nothing to fool. But the gun! Ah, that's
a foe which he cannot get up with. He may double and confuse the
dogs; but as he comes back along a side-road, with them yelping far in
the rear, he often hops right into a game-bag.
To do justice to the intelligence of the dog, and to be truthful about
the rabbit, it must be remembered that, in the chase, Bunny usually
has the advantage of knowing the lay of the land. The short cuts,
streams, logs, briers, and roads are all in mind before he takes a
jump. The dog is often on strange ground. Free the rabbit for the
hunt, as you do the fox, on unknown territory, and the dogs will soon
take the frightened, bewildered little creature.
There is no braver or more devoted mother in all the wilds than Molly
Cottontail. She has a mother's cunning and a mother's resourcefulness,
also. But this is to be expected. If number of children count for
experience, then, surely, Molly ought to be resourceful. There
are seasons when she will raise as many as three families--and
old-fashioned families for size, too. It is not uncommon to find ten
young rabbits in a nest. Five times twins! And all to be fed, washed,
and kept covered up in bed together! But animal children, as a rule,
behave better than human children, so we may not measure the task of
Mother Molly by any standard of our own. It is task enough, however,
since you can scarcely count the creatures that eat young rabbits,
nor the enemies that unwittingly destroy them. A heavy rain may drown
them, cattle may crush them, mowing-machines may cut them to pieces,
and boys who are starting menageries may carry them away to starve.
Molly's mother-wit and craft are sufficient for most of these things.
She picks out a sunny hillside among high grasses and bushes for the
nest, so that the rain will flow off and not flood it, and because
that here the cows are not so likely to trample, nor the plow and
mowing-machine to come. She must also have ready and hidden access to
the nest, which the grass and bushes afford.
She digs a little hollow in the sand about a foot deep and as big
around as a duck's nest, lines it first with coarse grasses and
leaves, then with a layer of finer grass, and fills the whole with
warm, downy fur plucked from her own sides and breast. This nest, not
being situated at the end of an inaccessible burrow, like the tame
rabbit's or woodchuck's, requires that all care be taken to conceal
every sign of it. The raw sand that is thrown out is artfully covered
with leaves and grass to blend with the surrounding ground; and over
the nest itself I have seen the old rabbit pull vines and leaves until
the inquisitive, nosing skunk would have passed it by.
Molly keeps the young ones in this bed for about two weeks, after
which time, if frightened, they will take to their heels. They are
exceedingly tender at this age and ought not to be allowed to run out.
They do not know what a man is, and hardly understand what their hind
legs are. I saw one that was at least a month old jump up before a
mowing-machine and bolt across the field. It was his first real scare,
and the first time that he had been called upon to test his legs. It
was funny. He didn't know how to use them. He made some tremendous
leaps, and was so unused to the powerful spring in his hind feet that
he turned several complete somersaults in the air.
Molly feeds the family shortly after nightfall, and always tucks them
in when leaving, with the caution to lie quiet and still. She is
not often surprised with her young, but lingers near on guard. You
can easily tell if you are in the neighborhood of her nest by the way
she thumps and watches you, and refuses to be driven off. Here she
waits, and if anything smaller than a dog appears she rushes to meet
it, stamping the ground in fury. A dog she will intercept by leaving a
warm trail across his path, or, in case the brute has no nose for her
scent, by throwing herself in front of him and drawing him off on a
long chase.
One day, as I was quietly picking wild strawberries on a hill, I heard
a curious grunting down the side below me, then the quick _thud!
thud!_ of an angry rabbit. Among the bushes I caught a glimpse of
rabbit ears. A fight was on.
Crouching beside a bluish spot, which I knew to be a rabbit's nest,
was a big yellow cat. He had discovered the young ones, and was making
mouths at the thought of how they would taste, when the mother's thump
startled him. He squatted flat, with ears back, tail swelled, and hair
standing up along his back, as the rabbit leaped over him. It was a
glimpse of Molly's ears, as she made the jump, that I had caught. It
was the beginning of the bout--only a feint by the rabbit, just to try
the mettle of her antagonist.
The cat was scared, and before he got himself together, Molly, with a
mighty bound, was in the air again, and, as she flashed over him, she
fetched him a stunning whack on the head that knocked him endwise. He
was on his feet in an instant, but just in time to receive a stinging
blow on the ear that sent him sprawling several feet down the hill.
The rabbit seemed constantly in the air. Back and forth, over and over
the cat she flew, and with every bound landed a terrific kick with her
powerful hind feet, that was followed by a puff of yellow fur.
The cat could not stand up to this. Every particle of breath and fight
was knocked out of him at about the third kick. The green light in his
eyes was the light of terror. He got quickly to a bush, and ran away,
else I believe that the old rabbit would have beaten him to death.
The seven young ones in the nest were unharmed. Molly grunted and
stamped at me for looking at them; but I was too big to kick as she
had just kicked the cat, and I could not be led away to chase her,
as she would have led a dog. The little fellows were nearly ready to
leave the nest. A few weeks later, when the wheat was cut in the field
above, one of the seven was killed by the long, fearful knife of the
reaper.
[Illustration: "Seven young ones in the nest."]
Perhaps the other six survived until November, the beginning of the
gunning season. But when the slaughter was past, if one lived, he
remembered more than once the cry of the hounds, the crack of the gun,
and the sting of shot. He has won a few months' respite from his human
enemies; but this is not peace. There is no peace for him. He may
escape a long time yet; but his foes are too many for him. He fights a
good fight, but must lose at last.
BRICK-TOP
[Illustration]
BRICK-TOP
That man was not only an item in the reckoning when the world was
made, but that his attributes were anticipated too, is everywhere
attested by the way nature makes use of his wreckage. She provides
bountifully for his comfort, and, not content with this, she takes
his refuse, his waste, what he has bungled and spoiled, and out of
it fashions some of her rarest, daintiest delicacies. She gathers up
his chips and cobs, his stubble and stumps,--the crumbs which fall
from his table,--and brings them back to him as the perfection of her
culinary art.
So, at least, any one with an imagination and a cultivated taste will
say after he has eaten that October titbit, the brick-top mushroom.
The eating of mushrooms is a comparatively unappreciated privilege
in our country. The taste is growing rapidly; but we have such an
abundance of more likely stuff to live upon that the people have
wisely abstained from a fungus diet. All things considered, it
is a legitimate and wholesome horror, this wide-spread horror of
toadstools. The woods, the wild fields, and the shaded roadsides gleam
all through July and August with that pale, pretty "spring mushroom,"
the deadly _Agaricus (Amanita) vernus_; yet how seldom we hear of even
a child being poisoned by eating it! Surely it seems as if our fear
of toadstools, like our hatred for snakes, has become an instinct. I
have never known a mushroom enthusiast who had not first to conquer
an almost mortal dread and to coax his backward courage and appetite
by the gentlest doses. And this is well. An appetite for mushrooms is
not wholly to be commended. Strangely enough, it is not the novice
only who happens to suffer: the professional, the addicted eater, not
infrequently falls a victim.
The risk the beginner runs is mainly from ignorance of the species.
In gathering anything one naturally picks the fairest and most
perfect. Now among the mushrooms the most beautiful, the ideal shapes
are pretty sure to be of the poisonous _Amanita_ tribe, whose toxic
breath throws any concentrated combination of arsenic, belladonna,
and Paris green far into the shade. There is nothing morally wrong in
the mushroom habit, yet for downright fatality it is eclipsed only by
the opium habit and the suicidal taste for ballooning.
There are good people, nevertheless, who will eat mushrooms-toadstools
even, if you please. The large cities have their mycological societies
in spite of muscarine and phallin, as they have kennel clubs in spite
of hydrophobia. Therefore, let us take the frontispiece of skull and
crossbones, which Mr. Gibson thoughtfully placed in his poetic book
on toadstools, for the centerpiece of our table, bring on the broiled
brick-tops, and insist that, as for us, we _know_ these to be the very
ambrosia of the gods.
The development of a genuine enthusiasm for mushrooms--for anything,
in fact--is worth the risk. Eating is not usually a stimulus to
the imagination; but one cannot eat mushrooms in any other than
an ecstatic frame of mind. If it chances to be your first meal
of brick-tops (you come to the task with the latest antidote at
hand), there is a stirring of the soul utterly impossible in
the eating of a prosaic potato. You are on the verge all the time
of discovery--of quail on toast, oysters, beefsteak, macaroni,
caviar, or liver, according to your nationality, native fancy, and
mycological intensity. The variety of meats, flavors, and wholesome
nutrients found in mushrooms by the average mycologist beggars all
the tales told by breakfast-food manufacturers. After listening to a
warm mycologist one feels as Caleb felt at sight of the grapes and
pomegranates: the children of Anak may be there, but this land of
the mushroom is the land of milk and honey; let us go up at once and
possess it.
[Illustration: "The land of the mushroom."]
If eating mushrooms quickens the fancy, the gathering of them sharpens
the eye and trains the mind to a scientific accuracy in detail that
quite balances any tendency toward a gustato-poetic extravagance. When
one's life, when so slight a matter as one's dinner, depends upon the
nicest distinctions in stem, gills, color, and age, even a Yankee will
cease guessing and make a desperate effort to know what he is about.
Here is where brick-top commends itself over many other species of
mushroom that approach the shape of the deadly _Amanita_. It
is umbrella-shaped, moderately long-stemmed, regularly gilled, and
without a "cup" or bulge at the root, rather pointed instead. It
is a rich brick-brown or red at the center of the cap, shading off
lighter toward the circumference. The gills in fresh young specimens
are a light drab, turning black later with the black spores. It comes
in September, and lasts until the heavy snows fall, growing rarely
anywhere but in the woods upon _oak_ stumps. I have found a few
scattering individuals among the trees, and I took two out of my lawn
one autumn. But oak-trees had stood in the lawn until a few years
before, and enough of their roots still remained to furnish a host
for the mushrooms. A stump sometimes will be covered with them, cap
over cap, tier crowding tier so closely that no particle of the stump
is seen. This colony life is characteristic. I have more than once
gathered half a peck of edible specimens from a single stump.
The most inexperienced collector, when brick-top has been pointed out
to him, can hardly take any other mushroom by mistake. It is strange,
however, that this delicious, abundant, and perfectly harmless
species should be so seldom pictured among the edible fungi in works
upon this subject. I have seen it figured only two or three times,
under the names _Hypholoma perplexum_ and _H. sublateritius_, with
the mere mention that it was safe to eat. Yet its season is one of
the longest, and it is so abundant and so widely distributed as to
make the gathering of the more commonly known but really rarer species
quite impractical.
No one need fear brick-tops. When taken young and clean, if they do
not broil into squab or fry into frogs' legs, they will prove, at any
rate, to be deliciously tender, woodsy sweetmeats, good to eat and a
joy to collect.
And the collecting of mushrooms is, after all, their real value. Our
stomachs are too much with us. It is well enough to beguile ourselves
with large talk of rare flavors, high per cents. of proteids, and
small butcher's bills; but it is mostly talk. It gives a practical,
businesslike complexion to our interest and excursions; it backs up
our accusing consciences at the silly waste of time with a show of
thrift and economy; but here mushroom economy ends. There is about
as much in it as there is of cheese in the moon. No doubt tons and
tons of this vegetable meat go to waste every day in the woods and
fields, just as the mycologists say; nevertheless, according to my
experience, it is safer and cheaper to board at a first-class hotel
than in the wilderness upon this manna, bounty of the skies though it
be.
It is the hunt for mushrooms, the introduction through their door
into a new and wondrous room of the out-of-doors, that makes mycology
worthy and moral. The genuine lover of the out-of-doors, having filled
his basket with fungi, always forces his day's gleanings upon the
least resisting member of the party before he reaches home, while
he himself feeds upon the excitement of the hunt, the happy mental
rest, the sunshine of the fields, and the flavor of the woods. After
a spring with the birds and a summer with the flowers, to leave glass
and botany-can at home and go tramping through the autumn after
mushrooms is to catch the most exhilarating breath of the year, is
to walk of a sudden into a wonder-world. With an eye single for
fungi, we see them of every shape and color and in every imaginable
place--under leaves, up trees, in cellars, everywhere we turn. Rings
of oreads dance for us upon the lawns, goblins clamber over the
rotting stumps, and dryads start from the hollow trees to spy as we
pass along.