136 Short Corrmmnkations : - — 



In farther illustration of this subject we present 

 Some Instances qf^ depraved Appetite in the domestic Babbifj 

 taken from a communication on the habits of this animal, con- 

 tributed by our correspondent, Wm. G. Barker. After he 

 has described the usual articles of food with domestic rabbits, 

 he thus proceeds : — 



They will drink ale with avidity, but in this matter, I must 

 own, they show much greater sense than pigs, two or three 

 spoonfuls sufficing them. But the appetite of the rabbit ap- 

 pears to have no bounds : vegetables are their natural food ; 

 but I unhesitatingly assert that they feed upon animal sub- 

 stances both dead and living. Some ievf of your readers will 

 undoubtedly feel surprised at this declaration : I have, how- 

 ever, seen it myself. Depravity of appetite is far from being 

 peculiar to the rabbit. If time and space allowed me, I could 

 refer to a kestrel (Falco Tinnunculus L.), now in my posses- 

 sion ; and to some remarkable anecdotes of hyaenas, by Pro- 

 fessor Biickland, in his valuable Reliquice Diluviame. Of these 

 in their season. Many, I may say the whole, of your readers 

 have, in all probability, kept rabbits in their younger days, 

 and they must, therefore, be well aware that the male has so 

 great a propensity to devour the young ones, that breeders of 

 rabbits always remove him from the doe, at the time of kind- 

 ling. As soon, however, as the young ones can see, there 

 remains not the slightest danger to them, from him * ; on the 

 contrary, he will sometimes display great ferocity in defend- 

 ing them from their enemies. Far otherwise the doe : if the 

 young are born dead, as they not unfrequently are, they are, 

 in most cases, immediately devoured by the mother ; and some 

 have this unnatural propensity in so strong a degree, that the 

 offspring, though born alive, share the same fate. I have 

 known one remarkable and solitary instance of a doe who 

 killed her whole brood, when two months old. They were 

 tolerably fine young rabbits, lively, and appeared healthy, but 

 there was something in them which exasperated their mother, 

 for she seemed wholly bent upon destroying them. It was not 

 done at once, nor in a few hours, but occupied her about ten 



* I have known an instance of a male inducing the death of a young 

 rabbit, between a third and half grown. The latter, and all those of the 

 same litter, were moving about on the floor of the apartment, out of their 

 hutch, when the male forced open the door of his own hutch and sprang 

 among them, and bit through the skin of one of them behind the shoulders. 

 In the struggling of the young rabbit to get away, and the detention of it 

 by the male, the skin, in an instant, was torn off a considerable portion of 

 its back, although not wholly detached from the portion of skin left re- 

 maining; insomuch that it was judged proper to kill the little rabbit 

 instantly, and this was done. — J. D. 



