THE COMMON RABBIT 177 



the senses. With the little ones he adopts the 

 tactics of the badger, but the full-grown rabbits 

 he stalks with catlike cunning. It requires a 

 good deal of experience and wood-craft to tell 

 whether it was a fox or a badger that excavated 

 a nest. If there are tracks to be found, the matter 

 is comparatively easy, for, as explained in the 

 chapters devoted to these two animals, the fox 

 has a small, neat, narrow pad, while the badger 

 leaves a much bigger impression, almost as large 

 as that of a big dog, and much broader in propor- 

 tion ; but as regards the hole itself the main 

 difference lies in the greater size and breadth 

 of that dug by the badger. 



In the early spring the female rabbits leave 

 the big burrows in the woods and hedgerows where 

 they have lived during the winter, and proceed 

 to excavate nurseries out of the way of the other 

 rabbits. It is usually said that they do so for 

 fear the old bucks should kill the young ones, 

 but as later in the season many litters are 

 successfully reared in the big burrows, this hardly 

 seems a sufficient reason. But at any rate such 

 is the custom. Somewhere at a distance from 

 headquarters a hole is scratched out, from two 

 and a half to three feet in length, and at the 

 end of it the old rabbit prepares a warm bed. 

 First she collects mouthfuls of grass, until she 

 has quite a quantity piled up in the hole, then 

 she robs herself that the nest may be lined with 

 the softest wool. She strips the fur from her 

 flanks and under-parts that the little ones may 



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