RABBIT-SHOOTING. 43 



After dinner that night we were asked to go out 

 into the courtyard to see the game laid out. It made 

 a very fair show, totalling up two hundred and twenty- 

 three rabbits, nine hares, twelve brace pheasants, one 

 woodcock, and one woodpigeon ; total, two hundred 

 and fifty-eight head. 



Next morning was showery, but one or two of us 

 responded to our host's call for volunteers to go out 

 and look after the cripples. We got three pheasants, 

 three hares, and forty-two rabbits, making a grand 

 total of three hundred and six head. 



A day or two after I left my kind hosts, and 

 returned to my bachelor quarters. " I've put some 



birds in the dog-cart," said H to me. When I 



was ensconced in the train I proceeded to stow my 

 luggage. One of the pheasants caught my eye ; a 

 horrible foreboding seized me. Yes, it was my 

 friend with the long spurs. 



Was it three or four weeks I hung him ? I 

 forget ; but this I recollect that even then his legs 

 were so tough as to be uneatable. 



Take him all in all, the rabbit is an inhabitant of 

 our fields and woods every Englishman would be 

 sorry to miss. Even to the non-sportsman they form 

 a pleasing object feeding out by the hedgerows on the 

 summer evenings. Fortunately he is an animal almost 

 impossible to exterminate. 



