64 THE RABBIT 



should be fenced with wire-netting, and crops of 

 clover, oats, or beans grown within the enclosure. 

 When these have been carried, or partly so, the wire- 

 netting may be removed, and the rabbits allowed 

 access to this reserved ground. By changing the 

 position of these plots the rabbits get access periodi- 

 cally to fresh untainted ground, and thrive ac- 

 cordingly. 



Mr. Simpson doubts the probability of the land 

 becoming what has been termed ' rabbit-sick ' if it is 

 dressed — as he has practised annually — with a good 

 dressing of gas lime and salt.' It may be imagined 

 that this offensive-smelling manure would be injurious 

 to the rabbits, and prevent their feeding on the 

 ground treated with it. This supposition, the author 

 maintains, is a fallacy, as, so far from the gas lime 

 being repulsive to rabbits, they will even make their 

 burrows in a heap of it. 



He attributes the failure of many of the old 

 warrens to the fact that thousands of rabbits have 

 been removed from them year after year, and perhaps 

 forty to fifty thousand pounds weight of meat and 

 bones taken away annually, and nothing put back. 

 His estimate of the number of rabbits that can be 

 kept on an acre of grass, properly manured with gas 

 ' As to this, see under heading ' Disease,' p. 47. 



