180 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



bank with one in it before the mouth of the burrow 

 had been opened, and another after the owner had 

 scratched the earth away. 



Rabbits open their nesting burrows and suckle 

 their young by night, closing them tightly with earth 

 again when they leave them. I had a nest under 

 close observation last spring, and was much interested 

 to find that its owner scattered some old hay from a 

 sheep foddering station close by over the mould with 

 which she filled the entrance to the burrow every 

 time she left it, a procedure which materially lessened 

 its chances of being discovered. 



When the small amount of earth lying patted 

 down flat outside a Rabbit's nest, and the length 

 and diameter of the burrow from which it has been 

 excavated are compared, it always appears to me 

 as if the owner must have taken some of the mould 

 right away so as to lessen the conspicuousness of 

 things, but I have not been able to gather any 

 corroborative facts on this point. 



During the early spring great numbers of young 

 Rabbits are drowned in their nests through heavy 

 rainfalls. Accidents of this kind no doubt contri- 

 bute largely to keeping their numbers in this country 

 in check, for such is the remarkable fecundity of 

 the animal that it has been calculated a pair 

 would, under the most favourable circumstances 

 possible, produce not less than 1,274,840 in the 

 short space of four years. 



I have proved that they will increase the 

 length of their nesting burrows after young 

 ones have been born, if an injury to the thin crust 

 of earth immediately over them should appear to 

 jeopardise their safety. A friend of mine, on whose 

 farm a number of Rabbits breed every year, cut 

 the sod immediately over the nest of one away in 



