more serious matter to
the wild creatures. But Molly Cottontail had no fear of it. She was not
brought up in the briers for nothing. Dogs and foxes, cattle and sheep.
and even man himself might be torn by those fearful spikes: but Molly
understands it and lives and thrives under it. And the further it
spreads the more safe country there is for the Cottontail. And the name
of this new and dreaded bramble is--the barbed-wire fence.

III

Molly had no other children to look after now, so Rag had all her
care. He was unusually quick and bright as well as strong, and he had
uncommonly good chances; so he got on remarkably well.

All the season she kept him busy learning the tricks of the trail, and
what to eat and drink and what not to touch. Day by day she worked
to train him; little by little she taught him, putting into his mind
hundreds of ideas that her own life or early training had stored in
hers, and so equipped him with the knowledge that makes life possible to
their kind.

Close by her side in the clover-field or the thicket he would sit and
copy her when she wobbled her nose 'to keep her smeller clear,' and pull
the bite from her mouth or taste her lips to make sure he was getting
the same kind of fodder. Still copying her, he learned to comb his ears
with his claws and to dress his coat and to bite the burrs out of his
vest and socks. He learned, too, that nothing but clear dewdrops from
the briers were fit for a rabbit to drink, as water which has once
touched the earth must surely bear some taint. Thus he began the study
of woodcraft, the oldest of all sciences.

As soon as Rag was big enough to go out alone, his mother taught him the
signal code. Rabbits telegraph each other by thumping on the ground with
their hind feet. Along the ground sound carries far; a thump that at six
feet from the earth is not heard at twenty yards will, near the ground,
be heard at least one hundred yards. Rabbits have very keen hearing, and
so might hear this same thump at two hundred yards, and that would reach
from end to end of Olifant's Swamp. A single thump means 'look out'
or 'freeze.' A slow thump thump means 'come.' A fast thump thump means
'danger'; and a very fast thump thump thump means 'run for dear life.'

At another time, when the weather was fine and the bluejays were
quarrelling among themselves, a sure sign that no dangerous foe was
about, Rag began a new study. Molly, by flattening her ears, gave
the sign