of my friends would have promptly slain; but I
take great interest in animal life, and am fond of watching the denizens
of prairie or forest.

When on my friend Jones's ranche in 1884 I sometimes went wild turkey
hunting or potting; we used to choose a moonlight night and lie under
the trees, where they roosted, and shoot them on the branches. It was
mere butchery, and the sole excitement consisted in the doubt as to
whether any of the big birds would come or not, and the chief interest
to me was the conversation of my wild Texan friends, who were stranger
than turkeys to me.

There were not many birds of prey around us, except the big slow-sailing
turkey-buzzards, which are protected by law as useful scavengers.
Nevertheless, I shot at one once, and having missed it I never tried
again.

My great friends were the hares or jackrabbits, which are fast, but very
easy to shoot, for if I saw one coming my way, loping or cantering
along, I stood stock-still, and he would come past me without taking the
least notice of my presence, probably imagining I was only a
curious-shaped stump. Sometimes I found them in the dry arroyos or
water-courses, and threw stones at them. They rarely ran away at once
at full speed, but for the most part went a little distance and sat up
to look at me, waiting for two or three stones, until they made up their
minds that I was decidedly dangerous.

Another little animal was the cotton-tail rabbit, so called from the
white patch of fur under the tail, which is as bright as cotton bursting
from the pod, I killed one once more by impulse than anything else. It
ran from under my feet when I had a knife in my hand. I threw it at the
rabbit, and to my surprise knocked it over, for I am a very bad shot
with that sort of missile.

The prairie dogs or marmots were in tens of thousands round us, and I
used to amuse myself by shooting at one in particular with the rifle.
His hole was a hundred yards from our camp, and he would come out and
sit on his hill every now and again, and then go nibbling round at the
grass. I shot at him a dozen times, and once cut the ground under his
belly, but never killed him. They are extremely hard to get even if
shot, for they manage to run into their burrows somehow, even if
mortally wounded. The Texans believe they go back even when quite dead;
but then they are rather credulous, for some of them believe that the
rattlesnake lives on friendly terms with the inmates of