BABBIT. 3-55 



man to approach within easy shooting distance. Yet that in 

 other respects rabbits can learn much by experience must 

 be evident to all who are accustomed to shoot with ferrets. 

 From burrows which have not been much ferreted, rabbits 

 will bolt soon after the ferret is put in ; but this is not 

 the case where rabbits have had previous experience of the 

 association between ferrets and sportsmen. Rather than 

 bolt under such circumstances, and so face the known 

 danger of the waiting gun, rabbits will often allow them- 

 selves to be torn with the ferrets' claws and mutilated by 

 their teeth. This is the case, no matter how silently the 

 sportsmen may conduct their operations ; tlie mere fact 

 of a ferret entering their burrows seems to be enough to 

 assure the rabbits that sportsmen are waiting outside.^ 



In its emotions the rabbit is for the most part a very 

 timid animal, although the males fight severely with one 

 another — having more strongly developed than any other 

 animal the strange but effectual instinct of castrating 

 their rivals. Moreover, even against other animals, rabbits 

 will, when compelled to do so, stand upon the defensive. 

 To show this I may quote a letter which several years ago 

 I pubHshed in ' Nature : ' — 



I have occasion just now to keep over thirty Himalayan 

 rabbits in an outhouse. A short time ago it was observed that 

 some of these rabbits had been attacked and slightly bitten by 

 rats. Next day the person who feeds the rabbits observed, 

 upon entering the outhouse, that nearly all the inmates were 

 congregated in one corner ; and upon going to ascertain the 

 cause, found one rat dead, and another so much injured that it 

 could scarcely run. Both rats were of an unusually large size, 

 and their bodies were much mangled by the rabbits' teeth. 



I never before knew that domestic rabbits would fight with 

 any carnivorous antagonist. That wild rabbits never do so I 

 infer from having several times seen ferrets turn out from the 

 most crowded burrow in a warren young stoats and weasels 

 not more than four inches long. 



' It is particularly remarkable that if under these circumstances a 

 rabbit bolts and, seeing the sportsman, doubles back into its burrow, 

 being then certain that the sportsman is waiting, it will usually allow 

 itself to be slowly and painfully killed by the ferret rather than bolt a 

 second time. This is remarkable because it proves the strength of an 

 abiding image or idea in the mind of the animal. 



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