THE COMMON RABBIT 191 



It is very amusing watching rabbits at feed 

 and play, for they often play like kittens, chasing 

 one another about and frisking in sheer delight 

 to be alive. Every now and again they have 

 to stop and attend to their toilet, to wipe their 

 faces or lick their paws, which latter they take 

 the greatest care to keep clean. It is only 

 when a rabbit is hunted that it gets its feet dirty. 

 At nearly every other step they stop and flick 

 their pads so as to shake off any drops of dew or 

 other moisture. Occasionally one will sit down 

 and stretch a hind-leg out before it, and give its 

 hind-foot a good dressing, after which it changes 

 its position and does the other foot. If it then 

 feels inclined to take life easily, it will stretch 

 itself out on the grass, lying in strange catlike 

 attitudes, with its white stomach exposed to 

 view, until something disturbs it. Very likely 

 it will be a buck passing by, for the old gentle- 

 men are very pugnacious, chasing the females 

 and driving the younger rabbits. They give 

 vent to their emotions in little grumbling grunts, 

 and have a quaint habit of rubbing their chins 

 on things. The males can always be told from 

 the females by their broader, thicker heads. 

 The female has a much narrower, longer head 

 in fact, a more feminine one that of the buck 

 being wider between the eyes, and his whole 

 appearance slightly coarser. 



The two sexes inhabit the same burrows 

 indiscriminately, but whether each system of 

 holes is the property of any one family, or whether 



