he Southwestern prairies, the jack-rabbit,--John II. let us
call him. Nobody ever gets quite accustomed to the preternatural ears of
this hare. In proportion they are to those of others of the Leporidae
nearly what the ears of the mule are to those of the horse. When this
bit of bad drawing, as big as a fawn and weighing ten pounds or so,
jumps up before you and bounds away at railroad speed, he makes you rub
your eyes. You expect the apparition to disappear like other
apparitions, especially as it moves off with vast rapidity. But it does
not. As suddenly as it started it is transformed into a prong like an
immense letter V, projecting in perfect stillness from the grass a
hundred yards off. You advance, and the same proceeding is repeated.
Jack is obviously deep in guns, and knows the difference in power
between a muzzle- and a breech-loader, if he has not ascertained, indeed,
what number shot you have in your cartridge. He varies his distance
according to these contingencies. Only, he has not as yet learned to
gauge the greyhound: that dog is frequently kept for his benefit.

A special endowment of this immediate locality is a large and permanent
sheet of water, three or four miles by one, which bears, and deserves,
the name of Eagle Lake. For, though overhung by no cliffs or lofty
pines, it is far more the haunt of eagles, of both the bald and the gray
species, than most tarns possessing those appendages of the romantic.
Its dense fringe of fine trees, among them live-oaks a single one of
which would make the fortune of an average city park, can well spare the
Conifers. They are all hung with Spanish moss, a feature which conflicts
with the impression of lack of moisture conveyed by the light ashen
color of the bark and short annual growth of many of the smaller trees.
Here and there tiny inlets are overhung with undergrowth which supplies
a safe nesting-place to a multitude of birds of many kinds. The surface
of the lake I have never seen free from ducks of one species or another,
and generally of half a dozen. Almost the whole family, if we except the
canvas-back and the red-head, visit it at one or another period. One
item in their bill of fare is the nut of the water-lily, the receptacles
of which, resembling the rose of a watering-pot, dot the shallows in
great quantity. The green, cable-like roots of this plant are afloat,
forming at some points heavy windrows. Some say they are torn up from
the bottom by the a