Mamm{ferous Animals. 137 



days. I do not, however, mean that she was employed the 

 whole of that time in the operation of slaughtering, as two or 

 three days intervened between the death of each. It was painful 

 to see her chase the little unoffending creature round the hutch, 

 in frenzied passion, and literally thirsting for its blood ; but 

 there was no alternative : to remove it from her was certain 

 death, to allow it to remain was to leave it in the jaws of de- 

 struction : one after another, they all were slain. One of 

 those which perished in this manner had recipived a wound 

 from her teeth and claws in the side, through which the bowels 

 protruded. As soon as it was dead, nay, even before the 

 breath had left the mangled body, the unnatural brute, and 

 the surviving young ones, eagerly devoured the whole of the 

 carcass, and even the bones, leaving nothing of their horrid 

 banquet but a portion of the skin, the legs, and, if I mistake not, 

 the head. Until then, I had thought maternal love inviolate in 

 the brute creation. I have since found, from other sources, 

 that they share the depravity of man. If any person presumed 

 to touch one of the young rabbits above mentioned, its death 

 was sure to follow almost immediately. What renders the 

 above account more remarkable is, that the animals had just 

 received their morning's allowance of food ; but the deaths ge- 

 nerally happened after feeding time. May I here be allowed 

 to ask some of your medical readers, might not this extraor- 

 dinary and unnatural depravity arise from some disease in the 

 organs of smell, and, perhaps, in the stomach also ? The 

 mother invariably examined them, which rabbits always do, 

 by smelling, previous to commencing her attack. — Wm, G. 

 Barker, East Witton, March 22. 1833. 



GoGseherry-eating Dogs. (VI. 364.) — Grammarians tell 

 us of three degrees of comparison: J. M.'s dog is positive; 

 J. D.'s is comparative ; mine is superlative. The book people, 

 and the technical people, and the anti-Natural History Maga- 

 zine people may laugh at all three, dubbing us, by way of 

 epithet, stultus, stultior, sttdtissimus : but no matter ; I cannot 

 let my poor old favourite Crib, and his favourite appetites, be 

 forgotten like a common dog or a common propensity, when 

 the oat-cracking, gooseberry-crushing candidates for immor- 

 tality are eternised by Mr. Loudon. 



My friend Crib was a dog of talent and discerning; 

 he was bred at Ely, and educated at Cambridge; having 

 graduated with his master, as Bachelor of Arts, in the year 

 1821. Like Ulysses*, he was one of the ugliest and 

 most eloquent of animals, and his very exuberance of black 



* " l^on formosus erat, sed exaXfacunduSy Ulysses." Ovid. 



