RABBIT. 
355 
man to approach within easy shooting di stance. Yet that in 
other respects rabbits can learn much by experience must 
be evident to all who are accustomed to shoot with ferrets. 
From burrows which have not been much ferreted, rabbits 
will bolt soon after the ferret is put in ; but this is not 
the case where rabbits have had previous experience of the 
association between ferrets and sportsmen. Rather than 
bolt under such circumstances, and so face the known 
danger of the waiting gun, rabbits will often allow them- 
selves to be torn with the ferrets 5 claws and mutilated by 
their teeth. This is the case, no matter how silently the 
sportsmen may conduct their operations ; the mere fact 
of a ferret entering their burrows seems to be enough to 
assure the rabbits that sportsmen are waiting outside . 1 
In its emotions the rabbit is for the most part a very 
timid animal, although the males light severely with one 
another — having more strongly developed than any other 
animal the strange but effectual instinct of castrating 
their rivals. Moreover, even against other animals, rabbits 
will, when compelled to do so, stand upon the defensive. 
To show this I may quote a letter which several years ago 
I published in 6 Nature : 5 — 
I have occasion just now to keep over thirty Himalayan 
rabbits in an outhouse. A short time ago it was observed that 
some of these rabbits had been attacked and slightly bitten by 
rats. Next day the person who feeds the rabbits observed, 
upon entering the outhouse, that nearly all the inmates were 
congregated in one corner ; and upon going to ascertain the 
cause, found one rat dead, and another so much injured that it 
could scarcely run. Both rats were of an unusually large size, 
and their bodies were much mangled by the rabbits’ teeth. 
I never before knew that domestic rabbits would fight with 
any carnivorous antagonist. That wild rabbits never do so I 
infer from having several times seen ferrets turn out from the 
most crowded burrow in a warren young stoats and weasels 
not more than four inches long. 
1 It is particularly remarkable that if under these circumstances a 
rabbit bolts and, seeing the sportsman, doubles back into its burrow, 
being then certain that the sportsman is waiting, it will usually allow 
itself to be slowly and painfully killed by the ferret rather than bolt a 
second time, This is remarkable because it proves the strength of an 
abiding image or idea in the mind of the a r, imal. 
