o spoil by untimely risings some fore-planned
mischief. But to take the trail again; the coyotes that are astir in the
Ceriso of late afternoons, harrying the rabbits from their shallow
forms, and the hawks that sweep and swing above them, are not there from
any mechanical promptings of instinct, but because they know of old
experience that the small fry are about to take to seed gathering and
the water trails. The rabbits begin it, taking the trail with long,
light leaps, one eye and ear cocked to the hills from whence a coyote
might descend upon them at any moment. Rabbits are a foolish people.
They do not fight except with their own kind, nor use their paws except
for feet, and appear to have no reason for existence but to furnish
meals for meat-eaters. In flight they seem to rebound from the earth of
their own elasticity, but keep a sober pace going to the spring. It is
the young watercress that tempts them and the pleasures of society, for
they seldom drink. Even in localities where there are flowing streams
they seem to prefer the moisture that collects on herbage, and after
rains may be seen rising on their haunches to drink delicately the clear
drops caught in the tops of the young sage. But drink they must, as I
have often seen them mornings and evenings at the rill that goes by my
door. Wait long enough at the Lone Tree Spring and sooner or later they
will all come in. But here their matings are accomplished, and though
they are fearful of so little as a cloud shadow or blown leaf, they
contrive to have some playful hours. At the spring the bobcat drops down
upon them from the black rock, and the red fox picks them up returning
in the dark. By day the hawk and eagle overshadow them, and the coyote
has all times and seasons for his own.

Cattle, when there are any in the Ceriso, drink morning and evening,
spending the night on the warm last lighted slopes of neighboring hills,
stirring with the peep o' day. In these half wild spotted steers the
habits of an earlier lineage persist. It must be long since they have
made beds for themselves, but before lying down they turn themselves
round and round as dogs do. They choose bare and stony ground, exposed
fronts of westward facing hills, and lie down in companies. Usually by
the end of the summer the cattle have been driven or gone of their own
choosing to the mountain meadows. One year a maverick yearling, strayed
or overlooked by the vaqueros, kept on until the sea