RABBITS. 



117 



the underwood, so valuable in oak forests, which was plentiful 

 twenty-five years ago, has now disappeared over large areas, 

 the sycamore appears to suffer less than other species, and 

 rabbits will not touch Ehododendron j^ontirum, M'hich some- 

 times forms a dense underwood in 

 parts of the forest infested by them. 

 Hedges of whitethorn are often com- 

 pletely destroyed by the peeling of 

 rabbits. 



By burrowing, rabbits do mucli 

 harm to cultivations and youn.i; 

 seedlings. Hares avoid places 

 frequented by rabbits. 



2. Protective Measures. 



(a) Protection of foxes, pole-cats, 

 martens, stoats and weasels, which 

 are the natural enemies of rabbits. 

 A family of stoats may kill fifty 

 rabbits in a week. 



(b) Careful fencing 4 feet high, 

 and use of wire-netting buried partly 

 in the ground and sloping outside 

 the area to be protected. 



((,') Valuable trees may be l)ound 

 round with thorns or wire-netting, or 

 their bases smeared with coal tar. 



(</) Use of traps or poisons, 

 or smoking-out the burrows with 

 sulphur. In Australia, poisoned 

 grain is buried in shallow trenches 

 to kill rabbits. Sheep are not thus 

 endangered. Between April and 

 October, 1890, in a forest near Kiistrin, 2,339 rabbits were 

 trapped, in traps supplied by Grell, of Haynau, Silesia, 

 costing 2s. each. A farmer in South Devon informed me 

 that stoats, being very reckless, are readily caught in traps 

 set for rabbits, and that since rabbits have been trapped 



Fig. :52. — W'illow gnawed by 

 rabbits («a<. size'). 



