MOORLAND IDYLLS. 



built," said the mother rabbit : " I suspect 

 a dog will follow, and perhaps a gun too." 

 " Never mind," said the father, who was a 

 rabbit of the world ; " they'll more than make 

 it up to us, I predict, by planting greenstuff, 

 which is a deal juicier, after all, than gorse 

 or bracken." 



And, indeed, I feel I owe a duty to these 

 earlier inhabitants ; I love their fellowship, 

 and do what I can to encourage their un- 

 interrupted residence. The night-jar still 

 perches nightly on one accustomed branch 

 of the big lone fir-tree ; the cuckoo comes 

 and calls to us from the clump of stunted 

 pines by the dining-room window ; the merry 

 brown hares dart obliquely across the ill- 

 grown green patch of tennis-lawn ; and the 

 baby bunnies themselves, all unconscious of 

 their misdemeanours against the growing 

 shrubs, brush their faces before our eyes 

 with their tiny grey paws as we sit upon 

 the terrace. My neighbour has a shot at 

 them with gun and dog; and even as I 



36 ' 



