The Crime of Thomas Cat

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 September 1927, Page 9

The Crime of Thomas Cat

'OABBITS are by nature gregarious, _ but the female when about to 'give birth to young makes a separate burrow with a single entrance for her litter. The ordinary residence is provided always with a postern gat© for escape. When born, young rabbits, unlike hares, are blind and almost naked. ’T’he mother rabbit suckles her young under cover of darkness only. At dawn, she leaves them and carefully covers up the entrance with soil, not to return until after dark. This practice ol’ sealing up the entrance to the breeding burrow and deserting it in the daytime is due to the nature of the young rabbits’ enemies. The chief of these are stoats, weasels and rats, which are ever on the lookout for an unclosed burrow. A certain cat had kittens, which, not being wanted, were at once destroyed. After having got rid of the kittens the cat’s owner, while digging in his field, came across a litter pf very young rabbits, which he brought home and placed with the mother of the deceased kittens. The cat took to them almost immediately, and suckled them as her own offspring, and, as may well be imagined, a good deal of interest was aroused locally in the brood of -young rabbits which was being diligently raised by a cat. Now comes the tragic part of the story. All went well with the cat and her changeling family for about ten days, but the domestic arrangement, apparently, did not meet with the approval of Mr. Thomas Cat, who, on discovering the foisted family, avoided any possible future discussion of the family problem by promptly devouring the lot.