THE RABBIT OR CONY 219 



invariably the work of bucks, which are naturally more restless 

 than the does ; but corroborative evidence on this point would 

 be welcome. 



Apart from instances either abnormal or based on maternal 

 feelings, as given above, the idea of resistance to a carnivorous 

 animal seems never to enter the animal's head. In fact, a hunted 

 rabbit will sometimes lie down screaming, as if prevented by 

 its fear from further attempts to escape.^ Mr Millais^ comments 

 on the indifference which rabbits may display to the presence 

 of a stoat, especially in open fields where a large company is 

 feeding. He writes that he has twice seen a stoat pass through 

 a number of feeding rabbits without their doing more than 

 just lollop out of the way ; but his sketch of the actions of 

 rabbits that had been actually mauled by a stoat has met with 

 some criticism as being imaginative. 



Although not gifted with exceptional intelligence, rabbjts 

 are, nevertheless, clever enough for all the ordinary purposes of 

 their existence, and occasionally they seem to rise higher in 

 the scale of common sense and to almost attain to concerted 

 action. Miss Haviland has sent me an instance of this. A 

 patch of buckthorn bushes having been frequently beaten with 

 dogs and the rabbits driven out and shot, the survivors suddenly 

 discovered that they could escape by running out of the cover 

 the moment the dogs entered it, which they accordingly made 

 an invariable practice of doing whenever a party came to shoot. 



In the articles on the hares a good deal will be found 

 about the speed of those animals. It is also necessary to say 

 something about the rabbit's powers of running. The 

 numerous steps which the comparatively short legs of the 

 animal compel it to take when going at its best speed are 

 certainly very suggestive of pace ; and although very inferior 

 to a hare, it cannot be called deficient in this quality, as I have 

 several times seen one by its dodging elude a smart pair of 

 greyhounds for three or four turns. Apart from pace, the 

 difference between a hare and a rabbit is that the latter has 

 no wind, and, unless it gets clear away at the start, its race 

 before dogs is invariably finished after a few twists or turns, 



' Owen Jones has written a graphic account of the chase and capture of a rabbit 

 by a stoat in A Gamekeeper's Notebook, 1910, 237. ^ iii., 49- 



