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Story
January 10, 1908
The Citizen
Frederick, Frederick County, Maryland
What is this article about?
Description of the snowshoe rabbit's remarkable adaptations for surviving snowy winters, including seasonal color changes and enlarged feet for snow travel, presented as nature's ingenious solution.
Clipping
OCR Quality
98%
Excellent
Full Text
A WONDERFUL CREATURE.
Born of a Snowdrift Crossed With a Little Brown Hare.
Nature has tried many means of saving her own from the snow death. Some, like the woodchuck, she puts to sleep till the snows shall be over. Others she teaches to store up food and to hide. So she deals with the wood mouse. To still others, as the moose, she furnishes stilts. The last means she employs is snowshoes.
This, the simplest, most scientific and best, is the equipment of the snowshoe rabbit, the wabasso of Hiawatha, a wonderful creature born of a snowdrift crossed with a little brown hare.
The moose is like a wading bird of the shore that has stilts and can wade well for a space, but that soon reaches the limit beyond which it is no better off than a land bird. But the snowshoe is like the swimmer-it skims over the surface where it will, not caring if there be one or a thousand feet of the element below it. In this lies its strength.
Wabasso has another name, the varying hare, because it varies in color with the season, and the seasons in all its proper country are of two colors, brown for six months, white for six.
So all summer long, from mid-April to mid-October, the northern hare is a little brown rabbit.
Then comes the snowy cold. The brown coat is quickly shed, a new white coat appears, the snowshoe grows fuller, and the little brown hare has become a white hare, the snowshoe hare of the woods.-Everybody's Magazine.
Born of a Snowdrift Crossed With a Little Brown Hare.
Nature has tried many means of saving her own from the snow death. Some, like the woodchuck, she puts to sleep till the snows shall be over. Others she teaches to store up food and to hide. So she deals with the wood mouse. To still others, as the moose, she furnishes stilts. The last means she employs is snowshoes.
This, the simplest, most scientific and best, is the equipment of the snowshoe rabbit, the wabasso of Hiawatha, a wonderful creature born of a snowdrift crossed with a little brown hare.
The moose is like a wading bird of the shore that has stilts and can wade well for a space, but that soon reaches the limit beyond which it is no better off than a land bird. But the snowshoe is like the swimmer-it skims over the surface where it will, not caring if there be one or a thousand feet of the element below it. In this lies its strength.
Wabasso has another name, the varying hare, because it varies in color with the season, and the seasons in all its proper country are of two colors, brown for six months, white for six.
So all summer long, from mid-April to mid-October, the northern hare is a little brown rabbit.
Then comes the snowy cold. The brown coat is quickly shed, a new white coat appears, the snowshoe grows fuller, and the little brown hare has become a white hare, the snowshoe hare of the woods.-Everybody's Magazine.
What sub-type of article is it?
Animal Story
Curiosity
What themes does it cover?
Nature
Survival
What keywords are associated?
Snowshoe Rabbit
Varying Hare
Winter Adaptation
Color Change
Snow Survival
Where did it happen?
Northern Woods
Story Details
Location
Northern Woods
Story Details
The snowshoe rabbit, or varying hare, adapts to winter by changing from brown to white fur and developing larger snowshoes for movement over snow, contrasting with other animals' strategies like hibernation or food storage.