178 ANIMAL COMPETITORS 



were so undesirable. Lately, they have been 

 turned to account as food, enormous numbers 

 of their frozen carcases being shipped to Eu- 

 rope; and also great quantities of canned rab- 

 bit-flesh. 



I am not aware that in this country any 

 really wild colony has been permitted to grow 

 except one near Belleville, Ontario, on a rocky 

 point covered with cedars, which jutted into 

 the Bay of Quinte. The increase in only two 

 years was astonishing. Undoubtedly an en- 

 closed space of waste land, where the creatures 

 might burrow easily, if devoted to a colony 

 would shortly produce a large annual crop 

 for market with a minimum of expense and 

 trouble; but whether regular sale for them 

 could be found is another question which would 

 depend for its answer largely on local circum- 

 stances. 



A few years ago an effort was made by the 

 Department of Agriculture to arouse an in- 

 terest in breeding and eating the large variety, 

 known as Belgian or Dutch hare, which orig- 

 inated in the Netherlands fifty or sixty years 

 ago, but it did not succeed. These large rab- 



