THE RABBIT. 227 



so exactly suits the rabbit's burrowing habits, 

 proves that the streams are subject to sudden 

 torrent from the heights, the silting and sifting 

 process of endless floods having washed away 

 the earth and left only the insoluble sand. 

 Each year, when these burrows are full of young 

 rabbits, the flood -waters come down and ex- 

 terminate whole colonies the victims merely 

 huddling in batches at the ends of their holes, 

 making no attempt to escape ere their retreat 

 is cut off. In fact, the abundance or scarcity of 

 rabbits in the autumn in these regions is governed 

 entirely by the number of spring and early summer 

 spates. If there have been no floods, then August 

 finds the glens and the woods alive with rabbits ; 

 but if, on the other hand, floods have been frequent, 

 there is hardly a rabbit to be found in the country 

 when August comes along. I have walked in 

 May down a glen, and seen more rabbits in five 

 minutes than one could count. Then have followed 

 days of thunder and heavy torrent on the heights, 

 the mountain-burn rising from a mere laughing 

 brooklet to a roaring cataract, bearing whole trees 

 on its troubled waters ; and when, a month later, 

 I have walked down that glen, scarcely a rabbit 

 have I seen. The receding waters draw hundreds 

 of the dead bodies from the burrows, bearing them 

 away to the sea. 



It is just as well that nature should impose these 

 immense drainages. We have rid the land of many 

 of the rabbit's natural foes the wolf, the eagle, 

 and so on while foxes and weasels are everywhere 

 kept in check, so that, if nature did not inflict these 

 wholesale losses upon the rabbit's numbers, man 

 would be hard put to it to keep them down. 



House-rats, indirectly, are among the rabbit's 



