IN AMBUSH. 107 



seeing anything ; and in my own case the rabbits so 

 patiently stalked have at last often gone free, either from 

 their own amusing antics, or because the noise of the ex- 

 plosion would disturb something else under observation. 

 In winter it is too cold ; then you step quietly and yet 

 briskly up to a fence or a gateway, and glance over, and 

 shoot at once ; or with the spaniels hunt the bunnies from 

 the fern upon the banks, yourself one side of the hedge 

 and the keeper the other. 



In excavating his dwelling, the rabbit, thoughtless of 

 science, constructs what may be called a natural auditorium 

 singularly adapted for gathering the expiring vibrations of 

 distant sound. His round tunnel bored in a sandy bank is 

 largest at the opening, like the mouth of a trumpet, and 

 contracts within — a form which focusses the undulations of 

 the air. To obtain the full effect the ear should listen 

 some short way within ; but the sound, as it is thrown 

 backwards after entering, is often sufficiently marked to be 

 perceptible when you listen outside. The great deep 

 ditches are dry in summer ; and though shooting be not 

 the object, yet a gun for knocking over casual vermin is a 

 pleasant excuse for idling in a reclining position shoulder- 

 high in fern, hidden like a skirmisher in such an entrench- 

 ment. A mighty root bulging from the slope of the bank 

 forms a natural seat. There is a cushion of dark green 

 moss to lean against, and the sand worked out from the 

 burrows — one nearly on a level with the head and another 



