228 THE RABBIT. 



worst foes. When a rat becomes diseased he is 

 driven out by his fellows, and forced to make 

 his home far from them. Probably he resorts to 

 rabbit-burrows, and rabbits, being very subject 

 to disease of any kind, rapidly pick up the rat's 

 ailment, which spreads from one to another 

 throughout the whole colony perhaps through- 

 out the whole country-side. Most of the rabbit's 

 fatal diseases are conveyed to him through the 

 loathsome house-rat, and ferreters regularly dis- 

 cover diseased rabbits and a diseased rat occupying 

 the same water-side burrow. 



BLIND RABBITS. 



Of all ways man employs of taking rabbits, 

 probably more fall by the snare than in any other 

 way, for its use is world-wide and universal. Every 

 village has its rabbit- catcher ; perhaps he is an 

 old man, who goes dothering round to look to 

 his snares long after he is too old for any active 

 form of hunting, and great is his fund of know- 

 ledge for the select few who come to know him. 



Netting is the only humane way of catching 

 rabbits, as, in shooting, a certain percentage get 

 away, however deadly a shot one may be, to perish 

 miserably ; while in ferreting, numbers of rabbits 

 are injured by the ferret if not by his teeth, 

 then by his claws and have to be abandoned in 

 their burrows. I consider snaring more humane 

 than ferreting ; but the cruelty begins when old 

 and rotten snares are used, and the rabbit gets 

 away with the tightly drawn noose about his neck. 



What fate is then in store for him ? Better far 

 that he had met the weasel on his own ground, or 

 perished by the flood-waters when he was small. 

 There is no getting rid of this hateful thing about 



