g6 Summer 



or any wall whose foundations are not on the solid 

 rock. And yet his engineering is not difficult to foil. 

 When he wants to get out of an enclosure he marches 

 close up to the fence and begins mining ; and if ten 

 inches or so of wire are laid flat on the ground or 

 buried a couple of inches below the surface his game is 

 up. Rats, which are much more clever and inventive, 

 will begin their operations several feet from the 

 obstacle they want to pass. On a hundred-acre 

 warren, I have found many rat-holes, but not one 

 through which a rabbit could escape. Where there is 

 egress, however, he is quick to take advantage of it. 

 As soon as the grass becomes fouled nature seems to 

 prompt him to go afield for food. Even sheep refuse 

 to crop along the borders of a plantation stocked with 

 rabbits : and in successful warrening to keep the grass 

 wholesome is more than half the battle. There . are 

 various devices. One an extremely good one is 

 once or twice a year to sow the land with salt in the 

 proportion of about five hundred pounds to the acre. 

 The mineral not only purifies the ground, but has a 

 medicinal effect upon the tenants, as anyone may find 

 out for himself who will compare the results of a post- 

 mortem of specimens killed inland and on the sea links. 

 The livers of the former are far more frequently diseased 

 than are those of the latter. Another useful artifice 

 is to leave as many as possible of those bare sandy 

 spots which the creatures delight to visit in the moon- 

 light. Everything that induces them to scratch and 



