Page:Wisdom of the Wilderness (1923).pdf/13



HE icy rain of a belated Northern spring drove down steadily through the dark branches of the fir thicket, and the litter of young "snowshoe rabbits," shivering beneath the insufficient shelter, huddled themselves together, for warmth, into a reddish-brown ball of the same color as the dead fir needles which formed their bed. Their long-eared mother, after nursing them all through the harsh daylight and shielding them as best she could with her furry body, had slipped away to forage for her evening meal under cover of the gathering dusk, leaving her litter, perforce, to the chances of the wild.

Concealment being their only defense against their many prowling and hungry foes, the compact cluster of long-eared babies made no tiniest whimper of protest against their discomfort, lest the sound should betray them to some hunting fox or weasel. Had they kept still, as they should have done, they would have been invisible to the keenest passing eye; but just for the moment the cluster was convulsed by a silent strug-