Yan was here one day sketching the trunk of a Hemlock to pass the watching time, but also because he had learned to love that old tree.  He never sketched because he loved sketching; he did not; the motive always was love of the thing he was drawing.

A Black-and-white Creeper had crawled like a Lizard over all the trunks in sight.  A Downy Woodpecker had digged a worm out of a log by labour that most birds would have thought ill-paid by a dozen such worms.  A Chipmunk had come nearer and nearer till it had actually run over his foot and then scurried away chattering in dismay at its own rashness; finally, a preposterous little Cock Chickadee sang “Spring soon—­spring soon,” as though any one were interested in the gratuitous and unconvincing fib, when a brown, furry form hopped noiselessly from the green leaves by the pond, skipped over a narrow bay without wetting its feet, paused once or twice, then in the middle of the open glade it sat up in plain view—­a Rabbit.  It sat so long and so still that Yan first made a sketch that took three of four minutes, then got out his watch and timed it for three minutes longer before it moved in the least.  Then it fed for some time, and Yan tried to make a list of the things it ate and the things it shunned, but could not do so with certainty.

A noisy Flicker came out and alighted close by on a dried branch.  The Rabbit, or really a Northern Hare, “froze”—­that is, became perfectly still for a moment—­but the Flicker marks were easy to read and had long ago been learned as the uniform of a friend, so the Rabbit resumed his meal, and when the Flicker flew again he paid no heed.  A Crow passed over, and yet another.  “No; no danger from them.”  A Red-shouldered Hawk wailed in the woods; the Rabbit heard that and every other sound, but the Red-shoulder is not dangerous, and he knew it.  A large Hawk with red tail circled silently over the glade, and the Rabbit froze on the instant.  That same red tail was the mark of a dreaded foe.  How well Bunny had learned to know them all!

A bunch of clover tempted him to a full repast, after which he hopped into a tussock in the midst of the glade and there turned himself into a moss-bump, his legs swallowed up in his fur, and his ears laid over his back like a pair of empty gloves or a couple of rounded shingles; his nose-wabblings reduced in number, and he seemed to be sleeping in the last warm rays of the sun.  Yan was very anxious to see whether his eyes were open or not; he had been told that Rabbits sleep with open eyes, but at this distance he could not be sure.  He had no field-glass and Guy was not at hand, so the point remained in doubt.