Look for some Chicken tracks in the dust; they are like "d" in the
drawing because the Chicken does not go "hop, hop, hop" like the
Sparrow, but "walk, walk, walk." The Chicken is a ground bird. Most of
the song birds hop like the Sparrow, and most of the game birds walk
like a Chicken. But the Robin (e) goes sometimes hopping and sometimes
running, because part of his life is in the trees, and part on the
ground.
TALE 56
A Rabbit's Story of His Life, Written by Himself
Yes, the Rabbit wrote it himself and about himself in the oldest writing
on earth, that is the tracks of his feet.
[Illustration: A WOODCRAFT TRAGEDY
As shown by the Tracks and Signs in the Snow]
In February of 1885, one morning after a light snowfall, I went tramping
through the woods north of Toronto, when I came on something that always
makes me stop and look--the fresh tracks of an animal. This was the
track of a Cottontail Rabbit and I followed its windings with thrills of
interest. There it began under a little brush pile (a); the bed of brown
leaves showing that he settled there, before the snow-fall began. Now
here (b) he leaped out after the snow ceased, for the tracks are sharp,
and sat looking around. See the two long marks of his hind feet and in
front the two smaller prints of his front feet; behind is the mark made
by his tail, showing that he was sitting on it.
Then he had taken alarm at something and dashed off at speed (c), for
now his hind feet are tracking ahead of the front feet, as in most
bounding forefoots, and the faster he goes, the farther ahead those hind
feet get.
See now how he dodged about here and there, this way and that, among the
trees, as though trying to escape some dreaded enemy (c, d, e, f).
But what enemy? There are no other tracks, and still the wild jumping
went on.
I began to think that the Rabbit was crazy, flying from an imaginary
foe; possibly that I was on the track of a March Hare. But at "g" I
found on the trail for the first time a few drops of blood. That told me
that the Rabbit was in real danger but gave no clue to its source.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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