Two days ago in the midst of the third leg of the morning walk I stopped before a small line of rabbit hair tufts. They were laid out in a horizontal line in front of my feet on the recently mown path between the corn and the hedgerow. Just above the line of tufts were two small pieces of bright white cartilage and a saucer-sized area of flattened thick green grass slick and shiny with a red coat of bright blood.
Small black ants were out exploring the cartilage and blood; it was clear plans were in the works or already being carried out to bring food back for the rest of the colony. More and more appeared as I watched.
I stood looking at them for minutes while trying to convince Hawthorne I had something at my feet he would like to see. He, meanwhile, was pushing up through the hedgerow, sniffing, snuffing, rushing back and forth. When he finally came out he would not come to me but ran ahead 15 feet and resumed his sniffing forays.
Giving up, I walked on and at the point Hawthorne had stopped was–the rest of the rabbit!
Something had destroyed its head. The bones of its teeth and jaw were there, twisted grotesquely, devoid of all hair and muscle but still attached to the rest of the body, which looked undisturbed.
I felt the body. It was not long dead. There seemed to be no other marks other than the remains of the head. It was not yet cold; rigor had started in the muscles but the viscera were still all soft and the body was still limp.
What ever killed the rabbit had done so probably just before we began our walk. But what animal kills by grabbing the head? I think, by Hawthorne’s actions, that the rabbit was snagged in the hedgerow, or chased out of the hedgerow into the grass and killed where I found the blood spray.
My only thought: a weasel of some sort. Did it leave the rabbit behind when it could sense we were coming? Would it come back for the rabbit. Hawthorne had no interest in the rabbit whatsoever. On we went, home.
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This morning we went the same way home. There was no sign of the cartilage or blood. There was no sign of the rabbit. Very few faint hairs remained of the line of tufts that first caught my attention.