RABBITS. 



117 



the underwood, so valuable in oak forests, which was plentiful 

 twenty-five years ago, has now disappeared over large areas, 

 the sycamore appears to suffer less than other species, and 

 rabbits will not touch Rhododendron ponticum, which some- 

 times forms a dense underwood in 

 parts of the forest infested by them. 

 Hedges of whitethorn are often com- 

 pletely destroyed by the peeling of 

 rabbits. 



By burrowing, rabbits do much 

 harm to cultivations and young 

 seedlings. Hare's avoid places 

 frequented by rabbits/ 



2. Protective Measures. 



(a) Protection of foxes, pole-cats, 

 martens, stoats and weasels, which 

 are the natural enemies of rabbits. 

 A family of stoats may kill fifty 

 rabbits in a week. 



(b) Careful fencing 4 feet high, 

 and use of wire-netting buried partly 

 in the ground and sloping outside 

 the area to be protected. 



(c) Valuable trees may be bound 

 round with thorns or wire-netting, or 

 their bases smeared with coal tar. 



(d) Use of traps or poisons, 

 or smoking-out the burrows with 

 sulphur. In Australia, poisoned 

 grain is buried in shallow trenches 

 to kill rabbits. Sheep are not thus 

 endangered. Between April and 



October, 1890, in a forest near Kiistrin, 2,339 rabbits were 

 trapped, .in traps supplied by Grell, of Haynau, Silesia, 

 costing 2s. each. A farmer in South Devon informed me 

 that stoats, being very reckless, are readily caught in traps 

 set for rabbits, and that since rabbits have been trapped 



Fig. 32. Willow gnawed by 

 rabbits (nat. size). 



