These are all minor details, however, and have been commonly observed by others. The only discovery of real importance which I made that Summer was in relation to the Rabbit method of communicating with each other. Fellow-Unnaturalists have written of the thumping, the whisker touching, and so-on. Some have even attempted to tabulate the thump code, but with only partial success.
My discovery is entirely new and has never appeared in any book before. Briefly it is this. Rabbits converse with each other by means of a deaf-and-dumb alphabet, very similar to that made by mutes of our own species, using their ears entirely.
I have not space here to elaborate upon it, nor to explain how I happened to discover it, but the entire subject will be found in a monograph which will be published in pamphlet form as soon as my paper on _The Rabbit Grammar_ has been read before the International Society of Registered Unnaturalists.
Jenny was very clever at making me understand her, even without resorting to her own language. For instance, one day I had given her a handful of salt, in response to unmistakable signs and gestures on her part. She tasted of it, sniffed, then sat down upon it and began to sway from side to side. I understood then that she preferred rock salt and immediately gave it to her, but was it not clever? Could a human being, without the power of speech, have done more?
Among themselves, the talk of the Rabbits was astonishingly easy and informal. After I learned their language, by watching Jenny, Chee-Wee, and the friends who used to call upon them, I heard, or rather saw, many amusing things. All unconscious of my familiarity with their speech, they used to discuss me in my own presence.
Once, after a long and prolonged wig-wagging on the part of an old, grey-whiskered Rabbit, I made out this: “Say, Jenny, what earthly good is that blamed hermit to you? Haven’t you influence enough to get us some corn?”
With a rare gift of repartee, Jenny replied: “You’re nothing but a pig. You’ve had so much corn now that you’ll have to ride in a grain elevator if you ever get home.” This Rabbit lived high up in a hollow tree to be out of the reach of draughts, as he was old and rheumatic, and so the speech had a double-edged meaning that set all the company to sneezing with suppressed mirth.