BIRDS AND BEASTS

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21328, 22 November 1934, Page 6 (Supplement)

BIRDS AND BEASTS

How many of you have heard that cry? When f was a boy we often used to see an old man in an old cart drawn- by ar. old horse go slowly along the street, calling out, "Wi-i-i-ld rabbits, rabs, rabs, rabs, wi-i-i-ld RABbits." And he looked from side to side, watching for someone who wanted rabbits for dinner at two shillings a pair. Is he a favourite in New Zealand? No! That at any rate is the answer among grown-up people. At one time there was not a single rabbit in the whole of New Zealand; not one. Governor Sir George Grey thought this a pity, and some of the people, remembering the sport they had enjoyed shooting rabbits in England, and the pleasure of eating stewed rabbit or rabbit pie afterwards, were well pleased

when Sir George Grey presented a pair of silver-grey rabbits to the people of Southland. But the climate proved healthy and the country good for the rabbits, and before long people began to think there were too many of them. They ate the grass that was wanted for the sheep, and presently were reckoned a nuisance; but they were there to stay. Then, in the year 1895, there was a very severe winter. It snowed, and snowed; the snow froze, then more snow fell, and the snow lay for weeks and weeks. The rabbits were frozen in; they could find no food; they died in thousands and thousands. There were very few left after the thaw, and they were lean and hungry, ready to eat anything. Then the runholders took advantage of what nature had done and laid poisoned pollard wherever there were rabbits, which were so hungry that they ate it, poison and all. Now men put up rabbit fences in all directions—fences covered with wire netting, the netting sunk two feet into the ground so that the rabbits could not burrow under it. In this way they were able to control the rabbits much better; and later on they found it profitable, not to poison the rabbits but to trap them and sell them; the bodies for pie and the skins for fur. So now the rabbits will never be killed out so long as women like to wear fur coats of

"WILD RABBITS" (By Johannes C. Andersen)

coney-seal and other ■nod-sounding names. Have you ever watched rabbits burrowing? They w.\>!'k in couples. One .'■■er;;Tch;\-: away, making the earth fly behind him. Once he yets t.:oni'"- distance in. • \c earth begins to collect behind him, and if it were not removed lie wculd soon be blocked in. This is where the second one helps, L.y gathering the earth in a heat), putting his forc-lcss round it as if they were arms, and backing out of 1 lie hole with it, when he scatters it round about and goes in for more. Brer Rabbit likes sandy soil best, because that is easiest to work in. Though dry on top. it is moist underneath, and that, stops it from falling in. In sandy soil the burrow may have many branches and four

or five entrances; that all makes for safety. In clay soil it is much harder to work, and there the burrow is just a longish curve with an entrance at both ends, and a side-burrow leading from the middle of the curve. At the end of this side-burrow the rabbit makes a cosy nest of dry grass and fur, and there the young ones are born—five, or six, or more in a brood, and several broods in the year. Shingly soil is the worst for the rabbit, and there the burrow is quite short, with a biggish room scratched at the end. This kind of soil is too likely to fall in on him, so he never goes in far. It is a pretty sight to see the little rabbits playing about outside their burrow. They will sit up and look about them, and if the ground is wet they will brush their paws together to dry them; and when making the burrow they brush their paws, too, just as we brush our hands together to rub the sand off them. If they are startled, away they scuttle and bob into the burrow, peeping out again when they think danger is past. It was once thought that if cats were let loose on the runs they would destroy the rabbits. These cats, of course, went wild, but they did not kill out the rabbits, not st all; they liked the young rabbits, for a meal, but after they had had their meal they did no more killing, and there seemed just as many rabbits as ever and many wild cats as well.