THE RABBIT OR CONY 217 



then, by placing their front feet against the heaps, they pressed 

 them forward as far as their bodies would reach or allow, and 

 by repeating this simple operation closed the burrow. 



Occasionally, from one cause or another, the young are laid 

 like leverets in a "form" above ground.^ In August 1904 I 

 found four young rabbits thus deposited. Their eyes had not 

 opened, so they were less than ten days old ; yet they were shy 

 and cross, and grunted out their strong displeasure at being 

 handled. Another remarkable exception to the general rule was 

 related by Mr L. Hardy, who stated that five young rabbits were 

 found inside an old scarecrow near Oakham ; ^ and Mr Jones 

 writes me that he has known of them having been dropped on 

 a rick or under a heap of straw. 



The Rabbit is a ' careful mother, but sometimes when her 

 young are examined she is so frightened that she never returns 

 to them. At other times she does not appear to object 

 to interference, if the nursery is not too much disturbed. 

 Occasionally prudence makes her alter the position of her young 

 in the stop, sometimes increasing its length,* or she will remove 

 them in her mouth to a place of greater safety. There is a 

 charming picture by Mr G. E. Lodge of a doe thus engaged, 

 in Mr Harting's book on the Rabbit.* Timid though she may 

 naturally be, she has been known to attack and defeat a carrion 

 crow, a weasel, and even the much more formidable stoat in 

 defence of her young.' A pleasing account of rescue was told 

 by Mr T. D. White," who saw a rabbit pursue a stoat as it ran 

 away with a young one in its mouth. Three times the rabbit, 

 turning suddenly, kicked the stoat with its hind feet and sent it 

 flying ten or fifteen yards down the hillside. Eventually it 

 recaptured the (probably dead) young one and carried it back 

 to the burrow from which it had been abstracted. The hind 



' As in gorse in the Isle of Man (Kermode) ; and, for other instances, see W. W. 

 Southam, Field, 2nd December 1876, 656, and Harting, Zoologist, 1877, 18 (same 

 instance) ; John Cordeaux, Field, 9th December 1876, 692 ; A. C. Spence, Zoologist, 

 1894, 458 ; D. Coles, Field, 7th October 1899, 580 ; R. Service, Ann. Scott. Nat. Hist., 

 1904, 66; J. M. Bolton, Field, 12th September 1908, 514 ; A. J. Steel, Field, 21st 

 August 1909, 377 ; William Evans. 



^ Field, i6th December 1876, 726. 



' Kearton, With Nature and a Camera, 1898, 180. * Op. cit., 20. 



° See Harting, op. cit., 19-21 ; and there are numerous other records. 



" Field, 4th September 1897, 393. 



VOL. II. P 



