REPORT ON TliEES NOT LIABLE TO BE DESTROYED BY RABBITS. 457 



naturally most difficult to deter them from attacking almost any- 

 thing, whether young hard-wood or fir, up to about ten or twelve 

 years of age. They are especially destructive to many, if not all 

 variegated foliaged evergreens, such, for example, as the Golden 

 Hollies, Golden and Silver Yews, and Golden Thujas. These 

 they will devour and entirely destroy. Amongst the dark-green 

 foliaged coniferse we find that they are very prone to attack the 

 Finns austriaca, and that even the green-clad young terminal 

 buds of the common Scots fir, or the young tender shoots of the 

 larch, do not escape their attention. "We have frequently ob- 

 served them at work upon the pendulous lateral lower shoots of 

 Cedrus Deodar a in the autumnal evening ; but were the hares 

 and rabbits to confine their attacks to it, in heavy soil they 

 would do a material benefit, for no small amount of the success 

 attending the growth and formation of a good leading shoot of 

 the Cedrus Dcodara, in the locality referred to, is owing to the 

 admirable close side pruning or foreshortening of the plants 

 by the nibbling of rabbits, thus directing a greater amount of 

 growth into the upper tiers of branches and terminal leaders 

 which happen to be beyond their reach. "We have found them 

 very severe upon young transplanted specimens of the English 

 yew, say from 9 inches to 1 foot in height • and, without pro- 

 tection, we do not find it safe to plant or transplant out in open 

 ground such specimens. 



It is almost impossible to specify a list of trees, either hard- 

 wood or coniferous, that will withstand the ravages of hares and 

 rabbits in all situations. A few years ago, when the Finns 

 Laricio was first sent out by nurserymen, it was lauded as the 

 only pine of any value as to timber that was adapted to resist 

 the attacks of hares and rabbits. Since then, in many cases, 

 public opinion has altered somewhat in its views in this respect 

 regarding this conifer, and many people now assert that it does 

 not possess the repellent nature originally ascribed to it. On 

 this point we have pretty conclusive testimony, and have come 

 to the deliberate conclusion, after several trials and reported 

 experiments, that of all the hard-wooded conifers in general 

 use, the true variety of Finns Laricio is best calculated by its 

 inherent properties to withstand the attacks of hares and rabbits. 

 From several instances recorded in our notes on this point, we 

 would here merely adduce the testimony of Lord Ducie, whose 

 careful and exact observations on arboricultural subjects are 

 well known, and who in 18(35 planted at Tortworth Court 

 (Gloucestershire) a P. Laricio, then about 6 inches in height, 

 in the middle of a swarm of rabbit burrows. For the first winter 

 it was untouched ; then came the severe storm of the spring of 

 1866, when hard pressed, and with no natural supply of food 

 near the spot, the rabbits " tried " in their dire extremity the 



