20 THE RABBIT 



rabbit, presumably the parent, suddenly dashed out 

 upon the scene from a bank, and fairly ' went for ' 

 the weasel. The latter turned tail at once and aban- 

 doned his prey. But the old rabbit still continued 

 to follow him with the greatest fury till she had driven 

 him completely off the ground. 



On another occasion, in October, 1891, a game- 

 keeper in the service of Mr. Deacon, of Southborough, 

 Tunbridge Wells, on going through a wood saw a 

 stoat which had caught a young rabbit, playing with 

 it as a cat does with a mouse, letting it go and then 

 catching it again. Before the keeper could interfere, 

 he saw a full-grown rabbit, probably the doe, rush 

 out of some underwood close by, knock over the 

 stoat, and carry off the young one in its mouth. The 

 stoat, on recovering itself, followed through the under- 

 wood, but presently reappeared in retreat pursued by 

 a couple of rabbits. 



A friend of the writer resident in North Wales 

 was once witness to a similar incident when the 

 aggressor was a crow. A young rabbit had strayed 

 a little too far from the mouth of the burrow, when a 

 carrion crow suddenly alighted close to it, and in a 

 series of hops gave chase, and was about to seize it. 

 Suddenly from the mouth of the burrow an old rabbit 

 came with a rush, and going full tilt at the crow, 



