204 TVild a7id Domestic. 



distance, to feed either upon corn or ve- 

 getables, and if the soil and corn be to 

 their Hking, will always remain in suffi- 

 cient numbers to stock a new district. At 

 the same time, they are good and profitable 

 stock, domesticated ; infinitely more pro- 

 lific, under good management, than in their 

 wild and exposed state, and their dung is 

 extremely valuable upon a farm. 



The old writers, perhaps, rather over- 

 valued the profits of this stock. Rabbit 

 keeping is practised by a few individuals 

 in almost every town, and by a few in 

 almost every county ; but thirty or forty 

 years ago, there were one or two very con- 

 siderable feeders near the metropolis, 

 keeping each, according to report, from 

 fifteen hundred to two thousand breeding 

 does. These large concerns have ceased 

 it seems, long since, and London receives 

 the supply of tame, as well as wild rabbits, 

 chiefly from the country. 



The only considerable rabbit feeders at 

 present, of whom I have heard, are two 

 gentlemen, the one resident in Oxford- 



