240 THE RABBIT. 



urgently needed for food. This snare takes too 

 much setting to be popular among rabbiters, 

 and I have never known it to be used in the 

 British Isles. 



The foregoing, though in no way intended as a 

 guide to the ' gentle art of snaring,' may prove of 

 interest as a side-path of woodcraft concerning 

 which so little is known by the respectable lovers 

 of outdoor life. Truly the man who knows best 

 the runways of wild nature is the man whose pocket 

 is to some extent dependent on them ; though such 

 an individual, having gained his knowledge by 

 years of toil and observation, is naturally some- 

 what reluctant to part with it. 



MATING AND YOUNG. 



Rabbits are polygamous or, rather, they are 

 wholly licentious as regards their marriage cus- 

 toms. ' Faint heart never won fair lady ' is the 

 code of the rabbit metropolis, and he who, by 

 strength of hind-leg and readiness of tooth, is best 

 able to hold his own against his fellows is, to put 

 it bluntly, the father of the most children. 



A doe wild rabbit probably begins to breed when 

 three months old. Some naturalists put the age 

 at six months ; but since a rabbit is full-grown at 

 three months, and it is no uncommon thing to 

 find does that are not full-grown already heavy 

 with young, three months would seem to be a 

 conservative estimate. 



The number produced per litter varies with the 

 time of the year. An early spring or a late autumn 

 litter may number only three or four, late spring 

 and summer litters being from five to ten. The 

 young are born blind and deaf; they begin to 

 hear at the end of ten days, and their eyes to 



