THE RABBIT. 



AS a rule, young rabbits are born in a shallow 

 -i*. burrow known as the 'stop' or the 'stab,' 

 often not more than a yard in depth, and so small 

 that one would hardly think an adult rabbit could 

 squeeze into it. Generally this hole is out in the 

 centre of an open field, facing south for warmth. 

 It is the rabbit's first step towards hiding her 

 young, though her ideas in this direction are 

 still so undeveloped that she often digs her stop 

 within view of the whole colony, the fierce old 

 bucks of which are as great a source of danger to 

 her children as is the weasel or the stoat. The nest 

 consists largely of down the mother has stripped 

 from her own breast, intermingled with soft dry 

 grass or moss scratched from the rocks, so that 

 nothing warmer and softer could be imagined. 

 While the young are still blind and helpless, 

 the mother sometimes, but not always, covers the 

 mouth of the hole, on leaving it, with sand and 

 loose bedding, treading down the covering so that 

 it resembles the features of the surrounding earth.* 

 Nature devotes a good deal of energy, however, 

 to keeping the rabbit population within reasonable 

 limits, and it is just as well that it is so ; other- 

 wise Bunny would overrun the whole universe. 

 Often this thinning-out process begins before the 

 babes have seen the light of day. Perhaps 

 the mother is young and inexperienced in nest- 

 making, and instead of digging the burrow half- 



* This occurs only in the case of a 'stop;' when the yonng are 

 born in a common burrow, the mother never attempts to close the 

 entrance. H. M. B. 



