Page:Wisdom of the Wilderness (1923).pdf/20

 dim premonition of peril, would arouse him from his half slumber and send him off noiselessly through the shadows a few moments before the arrival of the foe, who would be left to smell angrily at the still warm couch. If, as he hopped buoyantly across some moonlit glade, the terrible horned owl, that scourge of the wilderness night, dropped down on him on soundless wings, it always happened that some great branch would magically interpose itself, just in time, and the clutching talons would be diverted from their aim. Such experiences—and they were many—served only to sharpen his vigilance and drive home upon his narrow brain the lesson, more vital to a snowshoe rabbit than all others put together, that destruction lay in wait for him every hour.

Thus well schooled by that rough but most efficient teacher, the wilderness, and well nourished by the abundance of the growing season, young Snowshoe came swiftly to his full stature. Though universally called a rabbit, and, more definitely, a "snowshoe" rabbit by reason of his great, spreading, furry feet, he was in reality a true hare, larger than the rabbits, much longer and more powerful in the hind legs, incomparably swifter in flight, but quite incapable of making himself a home by burrowing in the earth.