RABBIT WAYS IN AUTUMN 211 



knows the meaning of stiffness. But you may notice 

 now that he straddles mightily over the gate which 

 of old he vaulted with the glide of the fallow bucks 

 in the park. And if you were with him when, at 

 the end of a long day, he goes home to his tea, by 

 chance you might hear the remark made to his good- 

 wife, " Well, mother, I bain't sorry to sit down." 



He looks his best in autumn ; and he feels his best. 

 He is ready for the test of his labours. He has had 

 worries enough ; the rearing season has been a " shock- 

 ing bad one," and he has had many late nights, 

 watching his birds. Perhaps he has had toothache ; 

 that is not unknown to keepers. Often he has been 

 soaked by rain, and more often by the dews of night 

 and morning. But he has lived all the year in the 

 open and in the country, and there is the secret of his 

 youth. 



' 



In the cool autumn days rabbits grow in attraction 

 to the poacher. They now have a habit of lying 



within their burrows by day, after the 

 Rabbit worryings, buffetings, and evictions of 

 Autumn harvest -time, waiting for things to quieten 



down until the sounds of binder and 

 harvester are no more heard across the stubbles. 

 Two people know this the keeper and the poacher. 

 Often it is a race as to who shall be first to take 

 tribute from out -lying dells, with ferret and nets. 

 The ferreting season proper now sets in in earnest, 



