WORM IX RABBITS. 131 



always for ten or twelve days close up the hole at the 

 mouth of the nest in the above manner, when they 

 leave their young ; after this they begin to leave a small 

 opening, which they increase by degi-ees, till at length, 

 when they are about three weeks old, the mouth of the 

 hole is left wholly open that they may go out, as they 

 are then of sufficient size to take care of themselves. 

 Eabbits, both wild and tame, are subject to two diseases ; 

 one called the rot, the other is a sort of madness ; 

 this may be known by their wallowing and tumbling 

 about ; the tape worm also is sometimes found in their 

 inside. A friend of mine has some rich pasture lands 

 on the banks of the Thame in Oxfordshire, which are 

 frequently flooded by this river. After the water has 

 subsided the grass grows in the spring, summer, and 

 autumn with increased fertility. When the hares and 

 rabbits feed on these fields so submerged many of them 

 are found dead from the rot. This was the case in the 

 winter of 1857, when I was staying at this gentleman's 

 house. This, I think, may be easily accounted for by 

 the grass having imbibed too much moisture from the 

 flood, as it is well known that this disease is very general 

 in wet summers, and fatal to these animals, excepting 

 in very light and gravelly soils. A gentleman writes in 

 "The Field" newspaper in 1857, "That when paying a 

 visit to a respectable farmer near Tedworth, in the 

 county of Hants, there is a considerable extent of waste 

 ground in the immediate neighbourhood, known as Bal- 

 ford Lea, and the above sheep walk was intersected by 

 a belt of furze in which rabbits abounded. ]My friend, 

 the owner of a farm abutting on the spot, proposed to 

 me his intention of shooting off and otherwise destroy- 

 ing the rabbits in the vicinity, observing that they did 



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