i 9 o ROUND THE GREAT WHITE HORSE 



timber, young and old, upon a large estate, and, of 

 course, looks upon rabbits at large as his natural 

 enemies. His record of the means by which these 

 creatures on a very large estate were maintained within 

 bounds, and yet available as a source both of profit and 

 sport, is all the more interesting. The Wortley warren 

 consists of very old park-pasture, which had always 

 been overrun with rabbits, on which the herbage was 

 in many parts very poor and rough. Seventy-seven 

 acres of this were surrounded by a cheap rabbit-proof 

 fence, enclosing a strip of old wood, mostly of oak, 

 with an undergrowth of elder, rhododendrons, and 

 bracken. It is curious to notice that though the 

 warren, which was divided by a wagon-road, was 

 provided with artificial burrows on the side opposite to 

 this wood, it took the rabbits a whole year to find 

 them out ; and for the first twelve months they fed 

 almost wholly on the half of the pasture which 

 adjoined their burrows. In the first year, 3000 good 

 live rabbits were caught. Meantime, every other 

 rabbit on the estate had been destroyed ; and the 

 annoyance of damage to woodlands and complaints 

 from tenants ceased. For the succeeding three years 

 the same average yield of 3000 rabbits has been main- 

 tained, in addition to which cattle have been fed on the 

 warren to the value of 100 per annum. But 

 omitting this source of profit, the ground has for four 

 years produced over 40 rabbits per acre. The author 

 makes the total 50 ; but this does not correspond 

 with the figures in his acreage. But this is far beyond 



