f a crow and the great double-toed track
which again told me that the murderer was the owl. All around were signs
of the struggle, but the fell destroyer was too strong. The poor crow
had been dragged from his perch at night, when the darkness bad put him
at a hopeless disadvantage.

I turned over the remains, and by chance unburied the head--then started
with an exclamation of sorrow. Alas! It was the head of old Silverspot.
His long life of usefulness to his tribe was over--slain at last by the
owl that he had taught so many hundreds of young crows to beware of.

The old nest on the Sugar Loaf is abandoned now. The crows still come
in spring-time to Castle Frank, but without their famous leader their
numbers are dwindling, and soon they will be seen no more about the old
pine-grove in which they and their forefathers had lived and learned for
ages.

RAGGYLUG, The Story of a Cottontail Rabbit

RAGGYLUG, or Rag, was the name of a young cottontail rabbit. It was
given him from his torn and ragged ear, a life-mark that he got in his
first adventure. He lived with his mother in Olifant's Swamp, where I
made their acquaintance and gathered, in a hundred different ways, the
little bits of proof and scraps of truth that at length enabled me to
write this history.

Those who do not know the animals well may think I have humanized them,
but those who have lived so near them as to know somewhat of their ways
and their minds will riot think so.

Truly rabbits have no speech as we understand it, but they have a way of
conveying ideas by a system of sounds, signs, scents, whisker-touches,
movements, and example that answers the purpose of speech; and it must
be remembered that though in telling this story I freely translate from
rabbit into English, I repeat nothing that they did not say.

I

The rank swamp grass bent over and concealed the snug nest where
Raggylug's mother had hidden him. She had partly covered him with some
of the bedding, and, as always, her last warning was to lie low and say
nothing, whatever happens. Though tucked in bed, he was wide awake and
his bright eyes were taking in that part of his little green world that
was straight above. A bluejay and a red-squirrel, two notorious thieves,
were loudly berating each other for stealing, and at one time Rag's
home bush was the centre of their fight; a yellow warbler caught a blue
butterfly but six inches from his nose, and a scarlet and black ladybug,