THE WILD RABBET. 



kept inclosed in the folds till morning. The 

 spring net is generally laid round a hay-stack., or 

 other object of inducement for Rabbets to collect 

 in numbers. The tipe, or trap, consists of a large 

 pit or cistern, covered with a floor. This has, near 

 its centre, a small trap-door, nicely balanced, into 

 which the Rabbets are led by a narrow meuse. 

 This kind of trap used, formerly, to be set near a 

 hay-stack ; but, as turnips are now grown for the 

 winter food of the animals, in an inclosure in the 

 interior of the warren, the trap is placed within the 

 wall of this inclosure. For a night or two the 

 Rabbets are suffered to go through the meuse and 

 over the trap, that they may be familiarized to the 

 place where the turnips are grown. After that, the 

 trap-door is unbarred, and immense numbers fall 

 in. In emptying the cistern, the fat Rabbets are 

 selected and killed, and the others are turned out 

 upon the turnips to improve. Five or six hundred 

 couples have not unfrequently been taken in one 

 night by this contrivance ; and in one instance, in 

 the Driffield warrens, as many as fifteen hundred 

 couples. 



A French writer has favoured us with the following 

 very ingenious method of catching Rabbets, which 

 he denominates, " Le chasse du lapin a I'ecrevisse." 

 "This chase is conducted by persons who neither 

 employ Ferrets nor fire-arms. Over the openings 

 of the burrows are placed nets, (as is usual in 

 catching the animals by means of Ferrets,.) and 

 into one of these is put a lobster. By little and 



little 



