THE BABBIT. 



Buffer by coining into your inexperienced hands. It would be 

 better, if adult rabbits are purchased, to have only does. True, 

 if you mean cultivating a stock, a buck will be indispensable ; 

 but he is a feUow who may always be induced to look in and 

 see how your does are getting on by making a trifling present 

 to his master. This plan will be found cheaper and much less 

 troublesome. Bucks are always quarrelsome fellows, have 

 enormous appetites, and after aJl, supposing you to keep no 

 more than half a dozen does, will be useful but a very few 

 times in the course of a year. 



Without doubt the best plan the beginner can adopt is to 

 procure eight or ten healthy rabbits as soon as they are fairly 

 weaned. They will not cost more — ^unless they be of a fancy 

 sort — than sixpence each ; and that will be the only loss should 

 one die, — as probably it will; more, perhaps. Any how, by 

 the time they have reached the breeding age of six months you 

 must indeed have been very unlucky, or very imprudent, if 

 there is not still remaining a tolerable number of sturdy young 

 rabbits, and with whose habits and peculiarities you are by 

 this time well acquainted. Let them remain tiU your prospect 

 of three or four litters is put beyond a doubt, and then make 

 your selection, turning over the discarded ones either to the 

 cook or the dealer. 



If you purchase adult animals, take care that the doe has a 

 broad chest, that her legs are wide apart and sturdy, that her 

 ears are wide and long, and have a fine silky feel when passed 

 between the fingers, that her head is wedge-shaped, and that 

 her teats are well developed and of a pinky hue. As for the 

 buck, the first essential is, that he be bright-eyed and quick in 

 his movements. Pass your hand over his limbs : if his knees 

 and other joints feel hard and " knobby " it is a bad sign ; if his 

 belly has a paunchy appearance, and his nails are long and 

 thick, you will find it a good plan to decline his further ac- 

 quaintance. His symptoms declare him to be too old to breed, 

 and if you kill him for the pot or spit, you will find it a sheer 

 waste of stuffing, he will be so tough. 



As already mentioned, at six months the doe is old enough 

 for breeding, and on no account should you allow her to begin 

 earlier. True she will have young, if allowed, by the time she 

 is five months old, and they may be healthy and numerous 

 enough ; the next litter, too, may turn out tolerably satisfac- 

 tory ; but ever afterwards you may depend on her presenting 

 you with a miserable lot of pigmies you will be ashamed to see. 



