If any one wishes to see or catch a coney, he must be up with the dawn.
For, like the rabbit, it is generally to be found feeding in the early
morning or at sunset; while a sentry, which is commonly an old male, is
said to be posted to give warning by a short squeaking bark, at which
signal they all scuttle away before one can obtain a glimpse of them.
After all, it is the early bird that catches the early worm, and the
coney has long since decided that it is the early coney that enjoys the
sweetest aromatic shrubs. And therefore, if any aspiring sportsman
wishes to bag _Hyrax Syriacus_ (for that is its Latin name), he must be
up and abroad with the dawn.
Indeed, the sharpest tools will avail us but little if the best hours of
the morning are idled away in bed. The old adage cannot be repeated too
often, that "he who would thrive must the white sparrow see." The lazy
farmer who got up at daybreak to try and get a sight of this _rara avis_
was not long in discovering the cause of his diminished fortunes.
Everything was wrong at the beginning of the day. Dishonest servants
came to their work an hour late, and others were helping themselves to
everything they saw. On his farm, alas! there was neither an early bird
nor an early worm. They were all late together, and he, the latest of
them all, was simply being gobbled up by such birds as he had. Poor
lie-a-bed had certainly got a glimpse of the white sparrow, and from the
day he saw it his fortunes began to mend.
"I never had any faith in luck," says John Ploughman, "except that I
believe good luck will carry a man over a ditch if he jumps well, and
will put a bit of bacon into his pot if he looks after his garden and
keeps a pig." Exactly. Solomon Slow will never be up in time to catch
the coach, and then he will waste the rest of the day in blaming the
hardness of his luck. But there is no luck about it. It is only
downright laziness. And boys cannot learn the golden text too soon, that
"drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags."