222 PROTECTION OF ANIMAL LIFE 



1551 at from is. to 2s., but the value of the skin was much 

 greater, for Campbell says 



the Skins of large well chosen Rabbits would produce Half a Crown, or 

 even Three Shillings a Skin, being then used in lining Robes, in Muffs, in 

 Tippets, &c. The Down was employed in making Hats, and in both ours 

 [an apparent printers error for colours] was highly esteemed in France, 

 especially the jet Black, and such as had only a Sprinkling of White 

 amongst the Black, and was very much preferred to their own. 



A great fillip was given to the use of rabbit skins for 

 hat-making in Scotland when, in 1621 the wearing of castor 

 or beaver hats was forbidden (although in 1672 the privilege 

 was allowed afresh to noblemen), and when, in 1695, authority 

 was given by law for the manufacture of hats from rabbit 

 and hare skins. 



In view of the Value attaching to rabbit skins, it is little 

 wonder that "cunninges" and "cunningaires" or rabbit- 

 warrens, were protected with a jealousy which in our day of 

 a rabbit pest seems remarkable. A Statute of James VI, 

 passed in 1579, was particularly severe on the "breakirs of 

 cunningaires" who, should they be found "unresponsall in 

 gudes," that is, unable to pay the fine of "fourtie pundes" 

 demanded on a third offence, were to suffer "hanging to the 

 death." This value, too, is accountable for the rapid spread 

 of the rabbit in Scotland and for the creation of innumerable 

 warrens, many of which, as that on the links at Aberdeen, 

 were commonties, the property of the neighbouring town or 

 village. An index to the esteem in which the skins were held 

 in countries outwith our own boundaries is furnished by an 

 interesting entry in a Charter of the Earl of Mar and Kellie, 

 which gives the yearly average export between 1611 and 

 1614: "Of cuneing skinnis 53,234 at 6 the hundreth, 



SEALS 



Abundant though Seals were in former days on the 

 coasts of Scotland, and valuable as their carcases must have 

 been in furnishing food and oil as well as in supplying skins 

 for clothing, no general attempt was ever made to protect 

 them. Yet an interesting story of St Columba shows that 

 at one time and in one place breeding colonies of seals 

 were jealously guarded. Adamnan, in his Life of St 

 Columba, tells how the Saint despatched from lona to Mull 



