218 THE BOOK OF THE OPEN AIR 



When the hungry, pink-eyed ferret the manner of male hares in the 



comes sniffing along the passages, there breeding season. Then one of the 



are innumerable labyrinths leading to rabbits flies away towards the burrows, 



secret hiding-places, and hundreds of pursued by its playmate, and the victor 



apertures, whence the alarmed rabbits in the contest jumps in the air and 



can bolt into the open. And when performs sundry quaint antics in the 



scared by the sight of men and the nature of a war-dance, 

 explosions of guns, the rabbits have The other pastime may be called 



just as many open doors by which they " the game of fox." A number of 



may return to the tunnels, and per- rabbits are feeding on the outskirt of 



chance escape the deadly lead from the the colony. Suddenly one of them 



breechloaders. feigns fright, pricks his ears, listens 



Late in the spring there is a great in- for a second, and then scampers up 

 crease in the population of the warren, the slope. In an instant all the long 

 Hundreds of young rabbits lie huddled ears and the white scuts stand up, and 

 up to the does in the huge fastness, there is a wild stampede to the sand- 

 Before they are quite weaned they banks. Most quadrupeds play at being 

 follow their mothers through the dark alarmed. Young horses and heifers 

 passages out into the daylight. Tim- enjoy this game, which seems to prove 

 orous, and yet adventurous, they steal that, besides an imaginative brain, 

 out on the short dry grass, when the mammals possess a sense of humour, 

 sun is sinking, and soon begin to and are fond of playing practical jokes 

 nibble. Until they have been startled on their comrades, 

 by enemies, the youthful rabbits are The slope and the field below it are 

 not over-cautious. They wander out scored with the " runs," " creeps," 

 of bounds, they are inquisitive, and or tracks of the rabbits. These path- 

 wont to forget danger in their mad ways are as distinct as the runs of 

 racings and frolics. sheep, and they are used by the rabbits 



Young rabbits have two games, in passing to and fro the feeding- 

 One is mimic fighting, a diversion grounds. It is in these runs that the 

 which is very amusing to watch. The poacher sets his wire noose, attached 

 combatants challenge one another, and to a stout peg driven into the ground, 

 make feints with their paws, sometimes These wires, or "springes," are made 

 standing up on their hind legs after on a slip-knot principle, and when the 



