258 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



such occasions even a dog with a good nose will pass close 

 without noticing. But the moment there is a vestige of a 

 sign that the hiding-place is observed, you see just a glint 

 of the eye which has been stock still, and the rabbit is off 

 at a pace that few animals can equal at their start. The 

 rabbit thus shows peculiar presence of mind within its own 

 surroundings ; and it is a question whether any mammal has 

 equal skill in giving the alarm. The note is singularly 

 appropriate to the occasion. If you step up noisily to some 

 bracken or to a spinney where rabbits are out, you will not 

 be vouchsafed any sign, except perhaps a scamper. The 

 noise is such that no further warning is necessary. But if 

 you can creep without notice to such a point of vantage 

 before making your experiment, the rabbit behaves very 

 differently. One has often tested them. From your hiding 

 flick a gravel stone or scrape a stick or make any other slight 

 and non-human noise. It is odds that the movement in the 

 bracken ceases. Repeat it, and you may expect to hear 

 the thud of a rabbit's foot striking the earth hard. Its effect 

 on other rabbits is not quite instantaneous. But within a 

 few seconds you see the rabbits which are out in the open 

 stop feeding ; and then turn head to the spinney, so crouching 

 for a while. A few may recover courage and presently 

 continue to feed ; but what happens times without number 

 is, that one by one they all slip back into the wood slowly 

 and quietly. ' It is best to be on the safe side.' ' He is 

 a good sound watchman and would not "start a hare"' 

 such seems to be the attitude. Clever and quick though the 

 rabbit is within his own domain, he is easily flurried and 

 seems to lose instinct if removed a very little way off. If 

 you catch a rabbit in a net a very easy thing to do and 

 take it even to the next field, it is quite astray. It will run 

 to the first cover it sees, in a rather undecided way, but when 



