162 

 SmGULx\R BREEDING-PLACE OF THE RABBIT. 



BY A. S. MOFFAT, ESQ. 



One beautiful day, last June, while rambling on Beanly Moor, I felt a 

 little fatigued by the heat, etc., and climbed upon the top of a large irregular 

 mass of rock, called the Mill- stone Heugh, to rest myself. The rock is of 

 an irregular circular form, with a flattish inclined top, and presents somewhat 

 the appearance of a huge uncouth mill-stone, hence its name. Upon the 

 highest part of the stone is a small patch of heather growing, about three 

 yards in diameter, and in the centre of this, I was not a little surprised to 

 find a Rabbit's nest containing four young; thus placed, in comparative security, 

 at a height of nine feet from the ground; while the inclined position of the 

 rock made the ascent and descent, on one side, easy to the dam. It is 

 well known that the usual breeding-place of the Wild Rabbit is in a short 

 superficial burrow in the earth, the mouth of which the female takes the 

 most assiduous care to cover over with soil every time she leaves it, to protect 

 it from the observation of any enemy, as well as a seemingly unnatural pro- 

 pensity which most of the males have to destroy their young. Another 

 example among many of the wise provisions of nature to prevent an injurious 

 superabundance of a species so prolific. But in this case the means of such 

 an attempt at concealment were totally disregarded and wanting, there being 

 neither soil to dig a burrow in, nor anything to cover it with when dug. 

 Hence the instinct of the parent animal must have suggested to it, that the 

 safety of her progeny was depending altogether upon a different train of cir- 

 cumstances, from the novelty of the situation, and that the usual precautions 

 were unnecessary in this case. 



This case is certainly a singular exhibition of the almost half-reasoning power 

 we occasionally meet with in the brute creation, and in this instance also by 

 an animal not standing very high in the scale of intelligence; as she must 

 have considered, if I may be allowed to use the expression, the exposed situation 

 of the nest upon the surface of the rock, amply compensated for by its slight 

 sheltering of heather, and by its elevation above the ground where its natural 

 enemies were known to exist. 



It is generally in the arrangements for the preservation and continuation of 

 the species, that animal instinct exhibits its most marvellous contrivances and 

 beautiful adaptations of means to ends, and makes its nearest approaches to 

 reason. 



Beanly, February 14^,, 1854, 



