THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
ground outside a covert is very bare, a good plan is to scatter small bunches 
of light thorns about the fields in the spring. Through these the grass will 
grow up, and while by reason of the thorns it will escape the mouths of 
cattle, it will form snug lying for rabbits. 
To this it might be objected that bunches of thorns scattered about 
fields where sheep are pastured are not likely to improve the quality of the 
fleeces; but no game preserver would care to see sheep feeding close up 
to a game covert, spoiling the fences and disturbing the nesting -places. 
Moreover, the thorns serve another useful purpose in frustrating the 
attempts of poachers to use long nets outside the coverts. 
There are various ways of making rabbits lie out. One plan is to cut 
a number of pegs about eight inches long with a slit in the top, into which 
is inserted a piece of folded paper dipped in paraffin, or spirits of tar. 
These are stuck in the ground opposite holes which have been first stopped 
(to keep the rabbits in and allow them to get hungry) and then reopened 
to let them out — when they will feed greedily. The smell of the paraffin, 
or spirits of tar, will deter them from returning. Another plan is to use a 
rope’s-end frayed out, soaked in paraffin, and then lighted at the windward 
holes of the burrows. Some keepers dispense with stopping, and merely stick 
the pegs in front of the holes two clear nights before the coverts are shot. 
The use of sulphur has been tried, but is not recommended, for if only a 
moderate dose be applied it will cause a rabbit not merely to bolt, but to 
desert the hole for ever; while if the fumes are too strong the inmates will 
be suffocated. 
Some people prefer “ fuses ” for bolting rabbits, and several different 
kinds are on the market. They may be obtained of Messrs Brunton and Co., 
Cambrian Safety Fuse Works, Wrexham; Nobel’s Explosives Company, 
Kingsway, London, W.C.; or Messrs Gilbertson and Page, Hertford. 
In the park at Weald Hall, Brentwood, Essex, after the use of some of 
these fuses a party of guns in one day shot 1,027 rabbits, and on the 
following day, over the same ground, 405 more. In the employment of 
fuses, however, success must in some measure depend upon the nature 
of the ground, for where the burrows are large and rambling it has been 
found by experience that fuses are of little or no use. 
The late Mr T. J. Mann, in north-west Norfolk, adopted a plan which he 
found very efficacious, and which he described in “The Field” as follows: 
“ Two days before we shoot the woods the keepers take a lined ferret 
on the back of which is smeared a strong solution of asafoetida. The ferret 
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