244 THE RABBIT. 



shelves, so numerous are its hidings, that its 

 feathered foes must be fleet indeed in order 

 to catch it. The peregrine, hurtling from the 

 blue, may meet with moderate success, but the 

 carrion -eating buzzard and the eagle are easily 

 circumvented, except by the very young. Thus 

 the overflow population from a mile or two of 

 rabbit-infested crags will keep the country inland 

 well supplied with rabbits over a considerable 

 area. 



This animal's partiality for allotment gardens 

 often tempts it into the suburbs of our great 

 cities, where, for some reason unknown to any 

 but itself, the rabbit takes up its residence, living 

 in hourly peril, and with only the most doubtful 

 burrow as shelter. At night-time Bunny creeps 

 furtively forth into the cat-infested gardens, and 

 eats an uneasy meal to the accompaniment of 

 the clanging street - cars in the roadway just 

 beyond. He dodges through the wooden fence 

 at the heels of a tipsy reveller returning late to 

 roost, and at dawn creeps for shelter under the 

 floor of a laundry, where gray rats swarm, and 

 human feet tramp all day perilously near his 

 head. He is denied everything which for a rabbit 

 makes life worth living ; yet he is devoid either 

 of the decision of purpose or of the sense of direc- 

 tion necessary to guide him back to happier and 

 healthier regions ! One can only echo the senti- 

 ments of the Christian nigger-boy who spent 

 his time skinning rabbits : ' Thank God I ain't 

 one of them 1 ' 



DESTRUCTIVENESS. 



Rabbits do considerable damage on the grazing- 

 lands which they frequent not only by what 



