Usagidanuki - 兎狸 - [Yokai] -

Usagidanuki - 兎狸 [うさぎたぬき] - [Yokai/Tanuki Tricks]

• About this yokai: A fairly careless bake-danuki that lived along the Yoshino River near a small hill called "Takaoka." - it transforms itself into a rabbit, pretending to be easy prey, starting off slow, then suddenly picking up speed. Hunters where said to end up chasing them around and 'round the hill at an alarming speed until they where exhausted! The Usagi-Tanuki was never caught! 

• History: Another one of several tanuki transformations as recorded in 1927's "Awa no Tanuki no hanashi" "阿波の狸の話" a collection of tanuki folklore passed down in Awa, Tokushima based on interviews and research collected by Kasai Shinya [カサイシンヤ] (1884-1956), Published in the early Showa period (early 20th century) - The book is "a valuable document that has been used frequently as primary source material for movies, cartoons, and other works." - Today, Many of the entries are easily found listed (in a nutshell) under the wikipedia entry for bake-danuki (on both the English and Japanese articles.)

[Please Note: this has nothing to do with & should not to be confused with the "katchi-katchi yama" folktale which features both a tanuki and a rabbit as the protagonist and antagonist. I mention it here as it sometimes (rarely) goes by a similar title in English.]

see also: tanuki, spook rabbits