26 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



varieties, some of which are so unlike the original stock, that 

 they seem to be species and not varieties, and indeed might 

 have taken rank as species, did they not invariably display a 

 tendency to recede to the ancestral short brown fur and upright 

 ears of the wild Eabbit. 



This animal lives, as we all know, in burrows, and is mostly of 

 a social nature, a considerable number of burrows being gathered 

 together and known by the name of a Warren. Whenever the 

 Rabbits find an undisturbed spot, which combines the advantages 

 of a sandy situation with the vicinity of food, they establish them- 

 selves forthwith, and sink their multitudinous tunnels into the 

 ground. The favourite locality for the Rabbit is a loose, sandy, 

 or gravelly soil, covered with patches of furze bushes ; for the 

 soil is easily excavated, and is very dry, and the young shoots of 

 the furze yield a food equally grateful and nutritious. More- 

 over, the tangled roots of the furze afiford an excellent protection 

 to the burrows, and the overhanging branches, with their prickly 

 verdure, serve admirably to shelter the entrances. 



When once they have established themselves, the Rabbits 

 increase with almost incredible rapidity, nearly rivalling the rats 

 and mice in fecundity, and converting the land into a very honey- 

 comb of burrows. Indeed, were not the flesh of the Rabbit 

 marketable, and its fur valuable — ^were not the stoat, the weasel, 

 the hawk, and other furred and feathered depredators extremely 

 fond of young Rabbits, the animals would spread so fast as to 

 become a positive nuisance. In some places they have increased 

 to such an extent, that the safety of buildings has been greatly 

 endangered by the deep and ramifying timnels which they 

 have sunk beside the foundations ; and I know of a case 

 where they have multiplied so inordinately, that the proprietor 

 of the ground, albeit a most staunch conservator of animal life, 

 has been obliged in self-defence to have them exterminated. 



It is not a very easy matter to drive the creatures from any 

 place of which they have already taken possession, and even 

 after emplojing all the paraphernalia of ferrets, nets, and guns, 

 two or three isolated individuals are apt to escape, and if they 

 should chance to be of opposite sexes, the Eabbit host is mar- 

 vellously soon reproduced. The creature becomes a parent at a 

 very early age, and by the time that a Rabbit is a year old, it 

 may have attained the dignity of a grandparent. 



