22 IHE KABBir 



personally witnessed anything of the kind. Pre- 

 sumably, therefore, such instances are rare, although, 

 from time to time, a few have been recorded. The 

 head-keeper at Craigincat, Perthshire, reported, in 

 January, 1894, that, having shot at and wounded a 

 rabbit, he sent a spaniel to retrieve it, when to his 

 surprise he heard the dog howling. On running to 

 see what was the matter, he found that the rabbit had 

 caught hold of the dog by the lip, and the dog was 

 howling and swinging the rabbit round and round 

 trying to get rid of it. Eventually the rabbit let go, 

 and the dog retrieved it. A somewhat similar case 

 was reported by Mr. S. E. Moony, of The Doon, 

 Athlone. His keeper was about to take a rabbit out 

 of a trap, and had seized it by the hind legs, when 

 the rabbit made a sudden snap at the man's other 

 hand and fixed its teeth in his thumb sufficiently 

 deep to draw blood. Although this man had been 

 engaged in trapping rabbits for nearly thirty years, 

 he stated that he never before knew a rabbit to 

 retaliate. 



In December, 1893, ^'^^- H. Selby, of Stoborough, 

 near Wareham, was severely bitten by a rabbit that 

 he was picking up after it had been shot through the 

 hind quarters. Its teeth met through the thickest 

 part of the flesh inside the third finger of the right 



