Anticipating Just a Little

Our florist had had a brainstorm. She planted grass in a ceramic dish to surround a little bunny that she hoped to sell. All in preparation of St. Valentine’s day no doubt. Irresistible for someone who is partial to rabbits. The grass is already in need of a trim, so we’re anticipating Spring just a little here.

From Stone to Life

On my walk yesterday I decided that I’d pick up counting rabbits again. It takes a certain amount of attention—somewhat denied in a season when you keep the hood of the parka tight, the bill of the cap low. Mild, overcast weather. To get into the swing of things, I started counting rabbits made of stone, the cute things people put on their front stoops. It was a long walk, an hour and a half. As I neared the end of it I entered a cozy hidden little street called Roosevelt in Grosse Pointe. Here I found my tenth, eleventh, and finally my twelfth stone rabbit. Almost at the end of Roosevelt I peered through the gap between the side of a house and a tall hedge into the depths of a back yard. There in the back was another one. Big, grey. It looked very real to me, but its absolute stillness suggested a very successful sculpture. Birds were walking across the lawn. I was tempted to clap my hands to test this statue. But then a bird passed the rabbit—and the big old rabbit turned its head. My thirteenth rabbit was the live one! Mission accomplished, I wended my way home.

Welcome Back

The temperature now hovering near 60° F…and eyeing the disorder in our backyard from the bedroom window, I glimpsed the first rabbit of 2010 in the backyard of our neighbor. Remembering my boyhood skills learned pretending to be a Redskin, I made a very slow and noiseless approach, shielded by trees, to take this commemorative picture of a member of the family of Leporidae. Note, please, the snow still on the ground.

Let’s Hear it for Leporidae

This being the first ever March the First with a post on Ghulf Genes, I wish to honor one of the families of the Mammalian class, of the phylum Vertebrata, superphylum Chordata, of the kingdom of Animalia. This is the family that shelters both rabbits and hares. Hares are bigger and belong to the genus Lepus; rabbits are smaller and their genera are also many (eight), of which the genus Sylvilagus is closest to me in daily experience, the classification of the Cottontail. From Spring (around the corner) until late Fall one or more members of this genus appears/appear somewhere on my property—else, to keep things balanced—let me just say that we both nest on the same minuscule area of the surface of the earth. March Hare and Mad Hatter thus inhabit the same space. As it should be.

My fascination with and love of the Leporidae is no secret to careful readers of this blog. The subject occurs here, here, and here. In the last of those posts I even claim to have been born on the Island of the Rabbits in Hungary. Biology, literature, and even sculpture celebrate these creatures. Herewith I show the March Hare from Alice in Wonderland, the first edition cover of Richard Adams’ Watership Down (courtesy of Wikipedia here), and proudly present a photograph of my own, taken last fall, of The Lord of the Rabbits of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, the biggest representative of this genre in my own neck of the woods.

Thus let us march into March.