Poachers generally take Rabbits with long nets. They wait until the Rabbits
are feeding at night a good distance from the covert, and then place the net,
which intercepts the game when driven towards their burrows. To prevent this,
it is a good plan to instruct the keepers to drive in the Rabbits at least one
night every week. This has the effect of making the animals more diurnal in
their feeding hours. Another good plan is to net the Rabbits, while hares should
also be netted at gates. This teaches them to take care of themselves. Another
safeguard is to turn horses or cattle on the field where a big stock of Rabbits
are kept, as these snort and run towards men and dogs at night, and so alarm
the Rabbits.
To the sportsman who can expend but a small sum of money on shooting,
Rabbits are of value if kept within reasonable limits ; but it is the unanimous
opinion of experienced game-preservers that they are detrimental to winged game.
Many excellent pheasant covers are ruined by Rabbits, which in a very short time
clear off the whole of the undergrowth, especially if food is scarce and they are
wired off from the grass fields. Finding its shelter underground, it is not necessary
for the Rabbit to preserve the cover, so it destroys everything in its neighbourhood
and renders the woods devoid of nesting-places for the birds and the harbours of
insect life, so necessary to young pheasants. They also foul the ground, interfere
with such birds as may desire to nest, and eat all the natural food before the birds
can find it. Another great fault of theirs is the destruction of the fences which
enclose the covers. By burrowing in these the thorn enclosures fall to pieces, and
admit sheep and cattle from the neighbouring fields which soon scare away the
pheasants. Thus the Rabbit forces the pheasant to become a wanderer, and
encourages what is already a natural habit.
The only way to keep a large stock of pheasants and Rabbits is to feed both
heavily, and many proprietors fell quantities of ash and other saplings in the winter,
on the bark of which these rodents love to feed. I have managed a small Rabbit
shoot in St. Leonard’s Forest for the last few years, and have found that when
growing cover is cut for them they do little damage to the pasture and young
corn. The most satisfactory way to obtain a good stock of Rabbits and to shoot
them, that is to say in a farming district, is to establish a wired-in rabbit warren.
A day before a shoot some hundreds can be caught and turned into the covers,
where all the old holes have been stopped. Rock salt should always be kept in
warrens, or in fact where any wild animals are maintained.
There is a fortune waiting for the man who can invent a practical Rabbit-trap
that is not cruel. The fearful suffering inflicted on Rabbits and all other quadrupeds
and bipeds that get into the teeth of the common gin is dreadful to think of, and
a subject of regret to all humane men. Funds for the invention of some merciful
engine of capture have been raised and offered to the inventor, but so far we seem
to be as far off the day of the ‘ happy despatch ’ as ever. Such a trap must of
course be quite as certain in its efficiency as the gin, but it should either catch
alive or strike dead, and I think that the Government, which professes to be
humanitarian, should offer a large reward for such an invention, and entirely prohibit
the use of the gin and the common wire snare, which is almost equally
cruel.
Rabbits are subject to many ailments, generally due to in-breeding, overstocking,
bad ground, or the vagaries of the climate. Enteric fever and tuberculosis
are common, as well as swollen liver, ‘ scouring,’ and enlarged abdomen.
Tuberculous liver is very common in some dry seasons, and in wet years disease
of the lungs, due to the presence of a parasitic worm Strongylus commutatus,
carries off large numbers. Rabbits are also affected by watery tumours on the
hind legs, which are supposed to indicate the early stages of tapeworm. Dogs
should not be allowed to eat these infected Rabbits, but they are said to be harmless
to man.
The article on the Rabbit by Mr. Lloyd Price in the ‘ Encyclopaedia of Sport ’
will give the reader a very complete summary of how to create and maintain a
large stock of Rabbits in good health.
In many English parks, white, fawn, black, and silver-grey Rabbits are to
be seen. Silver-grey Rabbits were at one time considered to be a profitable
investment, but nowadays the price of the skin has fallen so low and the animal
itself is such a poor runner that its culture is unnecessary. Mr. Dorrien-Smith
has devoted one of the Scilly Islands to this variety.
The * Belgian hare ’ ' is certainly hare-like in form, but it is only a large
domesticated variety of the common Rabbit, and is in no sense a hybrid. Crosses
between the Rabbit and hare are unknown, and are in fact impossible.
Malformations, especially of the teeth, are not uncommon, and Rabbits with
greatly developed lower incisors have often been reported. Curiously enough these
unfortunates are still able to feed and support life. Earless Rabbits have also
been recorded.1 Neill in the ‘ Scots Magazine’ 2 refers to a well-marked variety
of the Rabbit then existing on the Isle of May, which was ‘ distinguished not
See Field, January 9, 1904. 2 1816, p. 170.