NATURAL HISTORY OF THE RABBIT g 



Instances in which rabbits have produced their 

 young aboveground, like hares, have been occasion- 

 ally reported, but cannot be regarded as common. A 

 good deal depends upon the nature of the soil in the 

 locality frequented by them. For example, on moors 

 where the soil is very wet, rabbits will sometimes 

 refrain from burrowing, and content themselves with 

 runs and galleries formed in the long matted heather 

 and herbage. In very stony ground, too, where 

 burrowing is more laborious, they will sometimes 

 merely scratch a slight hollow, and make a ' form ' 

 like a hare. In T/ie Field of December 2, 1876, 

 Mr. W. Southam, of Durrington, near Amesbury, re- 

 ported a typical case of a rabbit breeding above 

 ground. On November 27, a flat 'form,' like that of 

 a hare, was found in turnips, and contained four 

 newly born young. Unluckily the old doe was shot 

 as she left the ' form ' before it was discovered. 

 Another observer, Mr. John Cordeaux, of Great 

 Cotes, Lincolnshire, found four young rabbits a few 

 days old in a bare fallow field in the Humber marshes. 

 They were nestling together in a slight hollow bedded 

 with down. There was no covert or shelter whatever 

 for them, the nest being as bare and exposed as that 

 of a lapwing. In some cases in which newly born 



