THE RABBIT AND THE HUNTER
The rabbit, or more properly the varying-hare, of the northern forest is also called the snowshoe rabbit, from the fact that nature has provided it with remarkable feet that allow it to run with ease over the deepest and softest snow. It wears a coat that changes colour with the changing seasons: brown in summer and white in winter. Its food is derived principally from the bark of the poplar, the willow, and the birch. In winter time rabbits are found to be fattest when the moon is full, and that is accounted for by the fact that they feed at night, and feed most when the moon is giving light. Besides, on stormy nights, especially between moons, they remain more under cover and feel less inclined to venture out even to secure their needed food. In all the north woods there is no animal that is of more use to man, beast, or bird, than the rabbit, nor is there any animal that is so friendly to all alike; yet no other creature of the wilderness is so preyed upon as the rabbit. But in winter its safety lies not so much in the great speed it possesses as in its snowshoe feet and in its skill in dodging. Rabbits mate in March and April, the usual litter of three or four being born about a month later. The nest is usually on the ground in some sheltered place under brushwood that forms a good protection, and the nest is lined with leaves, grass, or their own cast-off fur.
A rabbit snare is made of fine babiche, sinew, cord, or wire, and the loop is hung over a rabbit runway just high enough to catch it round the neck. In its struggles it sets off the spring or tossing-pole, thus usually ending its sufferings. When thus caught the flesh is tender and sweet; but when caught by a leg the flesh is flabby and tasteless, the reason being that when caught by the neck the rabbit is killed almost instantly; but when snared by a leg it hangs struggling in pain for hours before it finally bleeds at the nose and dies, or is frozen to death. When the latter happens, however, the rabbit is usually thrown to a dog or used for trap bait. The reason Oo-koo-hoo set the rabbit snares was not so much for present needs as to provide meals for the hunter while on his future rounds; also to keep on hand a goodly supply of trap bait.
Expert hunters, when they have time, prefer to hunt rabbits by calling them. In the rutting season they imitate the love-call of the female, and in other seasons they mimic the cries of the young; in either case, the unsuspecting animals come loping from all directions, and the hunter bowls them over with fine shot. Calling takes much practice, but when the hunter has become an adept, it is the easiest and the quickest way of catching them.
In relation to setting snares for rabbits, Mrs. Wm. Cornwallis King, the wife of a well-known Hudson's Bay Company's chief trader, once had an unusual experience. She had set for rabbits a number of snares made of piano wire, and when visiting them one morning she was astonished and delighted, too, to find caught in one of her snares a beautiful silver fox; stranger still, the fox was caught by its tongue. As usual, after investigation, the snow told the whole story in a graphic way. It showed that the fox had been pursuing a rabbit, both going on the full run, and the latter always dodging in the effort to escape from its enemy. Finally, the rabbit had bolted past the snare, and the panting fox, with its tongue hanging out, following close behind, accidentally had touched its wet tongue against the wire, and the frost of many degrees below zero had instantly frozen it there. Then the fox, struggling to get free, had set off the snare, which closing on its tongue had hauled it into the air, where it had hung with just the tip of its tail and its hind toes resting on the snow. When Mrs. King found it, it was dead.
That evening, when the fire sank low and we turned in, a pack of timber wolves for fully an hour sang us a most interesting lullaby; such a one, indeed, that it made the goose-flesh run up and down our backs—or rather my back—just as really fine music always does; and to tell the truth, I enjoyed it more than many a human concert I have heard.