CHAP. XVI.] FAEMING FOR LADIES. 331 



scanty, both weight and succulence of flesh 

 will suffer, and not unfrequently end in dis- 

 ease and death. 



There can be no doubt that in the feeding 

 of all animals " the better the food, the greater 

 will be the weight, and the better the quality ;" 

 but, if fed solely upon corn and oatmeal, or 

 only once a day with corn, and at the other times 

 with vegetable food, although the rabbit will 

 become sooner fat upon the former, yet this 

 mode of feeding will not occasion any dif- 

 ference in the flavour of the flesh. Variety 

 of food is, however, very desirable. Many 

 breeders feed their rabbits four times a day 

 upon pollard, grains, and various kinds of 

 greens, and Cobbett recommends, along with 

 carrots and other roots, " all sorts of grasses, 

 strawberry-leaves, ivy, dandelion, and the hog- 

 weed, or wild parsnip, in root, stem, or leaves ;" 

 though he admits that oats should be given 

 once a day, as too much green food will occa- 

 sion rot : but Moubray says, " that having 

 left a favourite stock of rabbits under the care 

 of a servant, he found them at the end of a 

 fortnight a " parcel of pot-bellyed and scour- 

 ing creatures, which had lost all the fine solid 



