116 PROTECTION AGAINST ANIMALS. 



2. Protective Rules. 



(a) Fence nurseries, especially those of fruit-trees, with 

 hedges or dead thorns, or with wire-netting 4 feet high. 



(b) Bind fruit-trees from November till April with thorns 

 branches of conifers or wheat straw. 



(c) Fruit-trees may be smeared with stinking substances. 

 A mixture of 10 quarts of bullock's blood, Ib. of asafoetida 

 dissolved in warm water, and some lime and cow-dung may 

 be used. 



(d) Shoot hares, especially in broadleaved woods. 



SECTION III. BABBITS. 



A pair of rabbits during spring and summer may produce 

 about 5 8 young ones every 4 5 weeks. Young rabbits 

 begin to breed when six weeks old, so that in New South 

 Wales, under favourable circumstances, it has been found 

 that a pair of rabbits may produce 13,718,000 in three years. 

 Rabbits cannot withstand the great winter-cold of the higher 

 Ardennes, between 1,200 2,000 feet, but in milder situations 

 throughout Britain and the North of France they are the 

 most destructive enemies of broadleaved woods. 



1. Damage Done. 



Rabbits, which are chiefly found on hilly and sandy ground, 

 do the same kind of damage to young growth as hares, besides 

 injuring the roots of plants by burrowing. They are not nearly 

 so destructive in biting off young shoots as by gnawing at the 

 bark of plants. The seedlings of the Scots pine, the chief 

 species on sandy soils, suffer most of all from biting, and next 

 to this black pine and larch, also oak and ash. 



As regards gnawing, nearly all species suffer, chiefly horn- 

 beam, ash, robinia, aspen, sallow, hazel and fruit trees. This 

 form of damage is most considerable in snowy winters, 1894-5, 

 for instance. Fig. 32 shows the teeth-marks of rabbits very 

 clearly. Not only is young growth attacked, but where rabbits 

 are numerous, and when the ground is frozen or covered with 

 snow, the base of large beech and other trees is barked, and 

 the trees may be completely girdled. From experience in 

 Windsor Forest, which is overrun with these pests, so that 



