164 Practical Game Preserving. 



are formed by the young rabbits, until within a compara- 

 tively short time the original pair have multiplied a hundred- 

 fold. 



We will now take a view of the haunts of rabbits during 

 the several seasons of the year, commencing, as is most 

 fitting, with spring. During the period from about the ist 

 of March to the ist of May, they dwell almost entirely in 

 burrows, constructed in hedgerows or banks, or in the 

 ground, and are careful to find their feeding places as near 

 their burrows as possible. In summer, provided they be 

 unmolested, rabbits delight to pass their time in the open 

 air, basking in the sun, or sheltered from the mid-day heat 

 under some branch of bracken or bramble, perhaps, also, at 

 the root of a tree, but in all cases within easy reach of the 

 sheltering burrow, so that should danger or inclemency of 

 weather threaten, they may at once retreat to it. They also 

 affect the coverts during summer, one of open copse or brake 

 being preferred. During autumn, the spring and summer 

 haunts are in equal favour, according to the state of the 

 weather. In winter small and warm burrows are sought, 

 and one that leads under a large tree or stone is preferred. 

 In fact, the warmer the burrow the less irksome do the 

 rabbits find the winter, which, to them, is one of no small 

 discontent. Spring is the season in which rabbits do most 

 damage to corn crops, and spring and early summer the 

 time when the pasture fields suffer most from a super- 

 abundance of rabbits on the farm. 



Of the wild rabbit it is often asserted that there are four 

 varieties, but we never saw but one kind. In some localities 

 they vary in size and colour, but by no means sufficiently so 



