Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

It is obvious that the trick may be varied in many ways. The following is an effective modification:--A rabbit having been produced by natural or supernatural means, is placed on the principal table (close to the hinder edge), and temporarily covered with a borrowed hat, while the performer goes in search of a sheet of paper, which when obtained, he spreads upon a small side table. Lifting the hat slightly, he takes out the rabbit, and walking with it to the side table, rolls it up in the paper, making a somewhat bulky parcel. Coming forward with this to the audience, he turns toward the principal table, and saying, “Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you watch me very closely, you will see the rabbit fly out of the paper, and back to the hat.” He crushes the paper together between his hands, and tearing it, shows it empty, while on lifting the hat the rabbit is again found safely ensconced beneath it. The ingenious reader will readily guess that duplicate rabbits are employed. One of them is placed under the hat, and remains there throughout the trick. A second, of similar appearance, is placed in a box or basket on the servante, immediately behind the hat. This box has no lid, but is pushed until wanted just within the interior of the table, the top of which prevents the rabbit making a premature appearance. The performer, slightly raising the hat, as though to take the rabbit from under it, lifts up this second rabbit, which the spectators naturally believe to be the same which they have already seen, and in apparently wrapping it in paper on the side table, presses it, under cover of the paper, through the rabbit trap, and screws up the ends of the paper (which should be rather stiff) in such manner as to make it appear that the animal is still inside it. The same trick may be performed with a pigeon with equally good effect, and considerably less difficulty.