Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1885 — The John-Rabbit. [ARTICLE]

The John-Rabbit.

Soon after the open-eyed pilgrim has crossed the limpid Missouri, he begins to notice pale streaks athwart the landscape, which he learns at last are jackrabbits in motion with their brief yet genial tails up like a startled steer in the sweet-corn. The jack-rabbit is not a bird of prey. He does not attack man, unless wounded, when he becomes ferocious and bad. Do not try to go near the female jackrabbit when she is on her nest, or she may pounce upon you and injure you. "When a jack-rabbit sees you, he at first seems surprised and annoyed; then he makes a few awkward attempts to cord up interesting space between yourself and him. This leads you on, for you feel sure that you can put some salt on Ins tale in a little while, and take him home for the children. A great many men have attemped to salt the tail of the jack-rabbit, and yet it is surprising to know how many of animals are roaming over the plains, whose tails still remain tptft}ted. The jack-rabbit is noteij for his simultaneous and abrupt movements. He is also very sensitive. If‘ you speak a harsh word to a jack-rabbit he will leave that territory; and I have known a jack-rabbit, who was insulted at 2 p. m. on Thanksgiving day, to get mad and leave the United States before sundown. These animals are not carnivorous, neither are they endogenous. They are herbivorous, destebrated and abnormally whence. You see a johnrabbit engaged in thought and you make the statement “Scat!!" in loud and discordant tone of voice, and he will overtake a streak of lightning in his attempts to get into Canada. Chasing the jack-rabbit with the broncho and the hound is great sport. The hound chases the rabbit and the human being chases the hound, mounted on a sure footed broncho. Now and then the broncho sticks his leg down into a prairie-dog hole and throws the hunter over his head. I knew a young man once who was passionately fond of hunting the jack-rabbit in this manner. He became a perfect slave to the habit at last. Every spring he would take the same broncho-steed and the same high-priced hound and go out to hunt the same jack-rabbit, lie would generally break his collar-bone in about the same place and the same physician would set it for him. This thing could not last forever, though. At last the jack-rabbit died of old age and inactivity. J. Rabbit can bear anything better than a sedentary life. My friend was almost brokenhearted and has never been the same man since. This teaches us how much we may become attached to a dumb brute. It is also a solemn warning to all of us never to tell a useless falsehood; also to shun the demon rum. Rum is the ruin of many. Very few people are drinking rum in the higher walks of life this winter. Rum is the great foe of civilization—and it don’t taste very good, either- —Bill Nye, in the Ingleside.