﻿North American Leporidce. 



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selection has done with the wild ones. The true rabbit, in its wild stale, 

 lives in burrows in the ground, which it excavates, and into which it re- 

 treats for safety at the approach of danger. In these burrows the young 

 are brought forth blind and helpless, while the hares bring forth the 

 young on the surface of the ground and make the nest in a depression 

 which they line with hair plucked from their own bodies. The rabbit is 

 nocturnal in its habits, passing the day in its burrow, and issuing forth in 

 the evening to feed. In England a collection of rabbit burrows is called 

 a " warren," and in some of them there are thousands of individuals. 

 They are hunted with "ferrets," a small animal allied to our weasel." 

 The " ferret" is muzzled to prevent its capturing a rabbit in the burrow, 

 for if it was not muzzled it would secure a victim, bite into its throat and 

 gorge itself with blood and then go to sleep in the rabbit's nest, leaving 

 the anxious hunter waiting *t the mouth of the burrow for a chance to 

 get a shot. There is nothing the English rabbit is so afraid of as a " ferret." 

 When one enters a burrow there is a pell-mell rush to get away, and all 

 the inhabitants of the group of invaded burrows scamper up and out of 

 the nearest entrance, and off to other and more distant holes. Then the 

 hunters blaze away right and left. Sometimes many rabbits are killed, 

 but frequently in the excitement all get away. When the ''ferret" has 

 run them all out he comes walking leisurely out himself with a disgusted 

 look on his grim visage. He is then taken by the gamekeeper, arid, after 

 the gentlemen are stationed at another suitable group of holes, the 

 " ferret " is started in again and the fusilade is repeated. The poachers 

 take advantage of the rabbit's dislike to " ferrets " and stop up all holes 

 but two or three and start in the " ferret." Over the open holes they hold 

 large bags, the rabbits rush into the bags until they are full ; they will go 

 into a bag or anywhere to escape the dreaded 11 ferret." The " ferrets" are 

 trained for the purpose and rewarded for the part they take in this whole- 

 sale murder by a repast of blood when the battle is over. The fecundity 

 of the rabbit is very great, the progeny of a pair in a few years amounting 

 to thousands. Redfield says, twelve litters of young are produced in a 

 year by the English species, and were it not for their numerous enemies 

 they would be a calamity. 



The hare does not depend on a shelter of any kind for safety, but trusts 

 to its fleetness of foot to escape from its enemies. Our familiar species 

 Lepus Sylvaticus, the "sylvan hare" or "cotton tail" as the boys call 

 it, will sometimes, when the weather is bad and snow is deep, go into a 

 drain pipe or hole, but it can move away from a dog at a pretty good gait. 

 But its best speed is not a circumstance to the way its long-eared cousin. 



