TEE KABBIT. 



mTtred within the narrow waUs of a mouse-trap. There can be 

 little doubt that the erroneous notion arises from the fact of 

 the rabbit being naturally a burrowing animal, and perhaps it 

 is excusable that ignorance should conclude that any sort of 

 wooden structure is more comfortable than a hole in the damp 

 earth. Very little inquiry into the matter will show that a 

 rabbit burrow is considerably more than " a hole in the 

 ground." The principles of rabbit architecture are of no mean 

 order. As says a recent writer on the subject — 



" To learn these, we must go to the warren. There we fin^ 

 that the rabbit makes its dwellings in a sandy soil, and there- 

 fore well drained; in hillocks and mounds, in preference to 

 hollow bottoms, and therefore dry. The burrows frequently 

 communicate with each other, and therefore allow a certain 

 amount of ventilation, the wind blowing into the mouth of the 

 hole being often sufficient to insure that. The thick stratum 

 of light earth which covers the habitations of a colony of 

 rabbits causes coolness in summer and warmth in winter. In 

 the depth of a burrow it never freezes, and is never oppres- 

 sively hot. In short, with the exception of the absence of light, 

 which is of little importance in a sleeping-place, a rabbit's 

 burrow, magnified to corresponding proportions, would make, 

 at a pinch, a very bearable dweUing for humaa beings devoid 

 of other shelter ; the nest which a doe prepares for her young 

 is soft and warm enough for a baby to lie in, if sufficiently 

 enlarged. And, in truth, many thousands of our fellow-crea- 

 tures spend their lives, are bom, and die, iu cellars which are 

 less wholesome than a rabbit's burrow on this large imaginary 

 scale would be." 



We now come to the familiar " hutch." Every young rabbit- 

 keeper should bear iu mind that his stock will be exactly what 

 he makes them. Domestication has the same effect on brute 

 kind as civilization has on human kind. The ancient British 

 savage, from whom sprang the nineteenth century British 

 ** swell," lived in a cave, was by no means particular whether 

 his steak or chop was raw or cooked, and thought himself 

 amply clothed in a/coat of red and blue paint. This is a fact 

 to be thought of whenever the rabbit-keeper finds himself 

 wearying of the task of hutch-tending, and sliding back to the 

 old delusion that so to fnss about an animal whose natural 

 dwelling is a hole in the cold ground is something like housing 

 a donkey in a drawing-room. Without doubt the rabbit's 

 natural dwelling is a Ixole in the ground ; but, then, recollect it 



