HAEBIT SHOOTING. 159 



and sweetliearts. The warreners are mdely distributed, and are to 

 be found in almost every section of the British coast, where there 

 are sand banks, or mounds of any kind. Though all of one species, 

 they vary considerably in size ; those in the Enghsh warrens being 

 greatly superior to those found in Scotland, both in size and in 

 flavour. The warren rabbits of the Lish coast are very much like 

 those found in Scotland, though on the whole, a shade larger in 

 bulk. The richest and finest warren rabbits are located in the 

 warrens along the eastern coast ; extendhig from Lmcolnshii-e to 

 Eerwick-UT)on-Tweed. It is a curious fact, but nevertheless a well 

 ascertained one, that all the rabbits on the warrens in the west 

 side of the island, are of a comparatively diminutive size, and in 

 many places have a strong fishy taste. 



Those who rent warrens for the sale of rabbits, seldom or ever 

 allow shootingupon them ; and chiefiy for this reason. If a rabbit 

 be wounded, it wiU run for some hole or burrow; and it is 

 knovm to regular shooters of them in such places, that so 

 strong and powerful is this desire to get back to their holes, 

 that animals, in the very struggles of death, succeed often in' 

 scrambling into a sand burrow. Now warreners teU us, and 

 we are convinced of the fact from repeated experience, that 

 if a wounded or dying rabbit get into a burrow, none of the 

 living ones will ever pass it : they will die in their holes first ; so 

 that a smgle wounded or dead animal wiU cause the death of 

 perhaps a score of their own kind in the same locality. This 

 Becomes a real loss to the proprietor of a warren. We have knov/n 

 a couple of guineas offered for two or three shots in a warren, and 

 refused, solely upon this ground. The obstinacy of the rabbit is 

 curious ; and it is equally, if not more singular in reference to the 

 ferret. This little animal is often used by shooters to make the 

 rabbits spring out of their holes ; they are also very extensively 

 used by warreners to make them spring, and fall into small poke- 

 nets^ as they are called, placed at the mouths of the holes. _ But we 

 have often seen when these ferrets have been long in making their 

 appearance, the warreners have dug for them, and found them 

 commonly lying, though muzzled, beside a dead rabbit, whose 

 very brains have been scratched out, or their back-bone laid bare, 

 rather than budge an inch for the ferret. This is a circumstance of 

 daily occurrence in aU the great rabbit warrens in the north of 

 England, that lie on the eastern side of the island. Nothmg injures 

 the productive remuneration of a regular warren so much as shoot- 

 ing over it, even though it be but a week or two in a season. 



The parker and the hedgehog rabbit, are very much ahke. They 

 both frequent plantations, and high inland rocky ground. They 

 are uniformly much smaller than the warren rabbits that are bred 

 on the eastern coast of England ; but are nearly of the same 

 length and weight as the general run of Scotch and Irish rabbits. 

 Li many parts of England, and even in Scotland, it has of late years 

 been a custom among gentlemen of landed estates, who were mucli 



