THE CHOICE OF FOOD BY ANIMALS 91 



digestive apparatus competent to deal with it. Yet 

 in this country we have the spurge hawk-moth 

 (Deiliphila euphorbia), of which the caterpillar feeds 

 exclusively on the sea-spurge (Euphorbia paralias). 



Perhaps, however, the readiest example of inscrut- 

 able taste in vegetable diet is afforded by the ever- 

 to-be-execrated rabbit. This creature, which, having 

 allowed it to do irreparable injury to our native 

 flora, we have transported to work similar mischief in 

 Australasia, shows a remarkable and unaccountable 

 discretion in its diet. Luckily for us, though greedy, 

 it is not omnivorous. It gnaws the common laurel, 

 which we consider poisonous, and avoids the rhodo- 

 dendron, belonging to the innocuous heath family. 

 It devours crocuses and rejects snowdrops, both 

 members of the lily tribe ; it eats hepaticas to the 

 ground, and avoids their cousins, the winter aconites 

 and wood anemones. Luckily for our lanes and 

 woodland walks, the rabbit cannot digest the com- 

 mon primrose ; but almost all the exotic kinds, such 

 as auriculas, are destroyed at once, and even the 

 coloured varieties of cowslip and common primrose 

 are not invulnerable. 



Perhaps the results of a lifelong contest with 

 rabbits may not be without use to those who delight 



