Rabbits 95 



the experiment believe (as a friend of mine puts it) 

 that ' for profit and pleasure and plenty of rabbits the 

 best way is for a man to farm his own property, and 

 keep up what stock he likes.' This gentleman has an 

 estate of over 2,000 acres on which he kills some 2,000 

 rabbits a year, and his tenants it is a case of pull 

 devil pull baker about as many more. It is obvious 

 that when rental, wages, and other expenses have to 

 be raised from the little beasts, the numbers reared 

 must be vastly greater than that. And yet, on hilly 

 land which commands no high rental, and is only good 

 enough to grow mountain grass, furze, bracken, and 

 some gorse for cover, the experiment seems worth 

 trying. Even here, however, the disappointments 

 may be many and grave. ' I enclosed,' writes one of my 

 correspondents, ' about a hundred acres of the most 

 rabbitty part of the property plantations, furze, grass 

 and so forth. There was a good stock when I enclosed, 

 but I found after a time that there were actually fewer 

 rabbits inside the wire than outside, where they were 

 exposed to the tenants. I think,' he concludes, ' rabbits 

 must like roaming as hares do.' 



It might be thought from the beast's excessive and 

 almost dangerous fecundity, that if a few pairs were 

 carefully surrounded the population would soon swarm 

 to the extreme limits of subsistence. Yet it does not 

 come out that way in practice. In the first place, the 

 fence must be cunningly constructed to keep him 

 within, for he will speedily burrow under sunken wire 



