THB OLD-FASHIONED BABBII-HUTOH. 



coNCEKcrma sabbii hutches. 



Ii is quite time that some one ventured to champion th«r 

 «ause of this much maligned and unjustly contemned littie 

 animal. " Unjustly contemned ! " I think I hear some youth- 

 ful reader exclaim. " Kot at all. We have tried it, and can 

 state, 'without fear of contradiction, that rabbit-keeping can 

 never be made either a profitable business or an agreeable pas- 

 time, and that the only return for your industry and capital is 

 disgust and disappointment. We built a most comfortable 

 hutch, and famished it after the approved fashion. We stocked 

 it with sound, Kvely animals, and fed them with all their 

 hearts could desire. What was the result ? The bucks grew 

 gaunt and ragged, and fought and mauled each other like 

 tigers ; while the does either turned cannibals and devoured 

 their children as fast as they were bom, or else starved the 

 majority of them through sheer indolence. They ate like 

 wolves, and as to the house they lived in, it was an offence to 

 the nose to approach it." 



Alas ! a pify it is that an animal of this abused species — 

 some experienced, motherly old doe, for instance — coxdd not for 

 a little time be endowed with reason and speech, that she 

 might remonstrate with her prejudiced keeper, luii show him 

 the other side of the picture. "Anybody," says Oobbett, 

 " knows how to knock up a rabbit-hutch ;" and who shall tell 

 32 '^ 



