204 LEPORID^— ORYCTOLAGUS 



of the mounds of excavation is that they generally have fairly 

 definite edges, yet there is so little soil at the mouth of some 

 big burrows that it must also be scattered broadcast. Some- 

 times a worker, either finding the labour too heavy in the 

 original direction, or, for some other reason, changes it, so that 

 the mound bifurcates. 



Exactly how the work is performed is a debatable question. 

 The main labour of digging must always, of course, fall upon 

 the fore paws, assisted, where an obstacle such as a stone has 

 to be removed, by the teeth.^ In removing the soil, no doubt 

 the usual method is to pull the material backwards with the 

 fore feet, throwing it out bodily between the hind legs when 

 necessary. Sometimes the animal walks backwards, working 

 its hind feet alternately, and their action is so strong that it 

 results in scattering the soil for a distance. As Mr Owen 

 Jones has well put^ it, the fore feet are used for throwing back 

 the soil a little way, the hind legs for flinging it a long way. 

 Mr Jones informs me that he has twice seen a rabbit thus 

 flinging back the excavated earth, and on one occasion he was 

 at such close quarters that he caught the operator by a hind 

 leg with his hand. The action in both cases closely resembles 

 that of a dog, which in its vigorous backward cannonading 

 may often reach a man's eye. 



Although most of the burrows are constructed from the 

 outside, there are always a certain number of entrances which 

 show no excavation mound, and have evidently been opened 

 from the inside. The latter frequently go down almost perpen- 

 dicularly for a distance of three or four feet, and their mouths 

 are small, devoid of bare spaces around them, and usually con- 

 cealed by vegetation. These are the emergency exits, scoot-, 

 scout-,' or pop-holes, which a rabbit uses only in order to escape 

 from an enemy inside the burrow. They often present an 

 appearance of having been ingeniously concealed ; but it seems 

 probable that this is due rather to accident than to a display pi 

 forethought * on the part of the rodents. Indeed, most holes 



^ Richard Kearton, The Fairyland of Living Things, 1907, 80. 



2 In lit, 15th April 1911. 3 From "scoot" = to make off quickly. 



* As against this, however, is the fact that in sandy and loamy soils an excavation 

 may be carried to within a half inch or so of the surface. When pressed by an enemy 

 from within, a rabbit will push through the thin, unexcavated portion and escape. 



