Welsh rabbit

“ Bumper had accidentally found his way into the burrow through the hollow tree trunk!
"Stop where you are!" the rabbit guarding the hole shouted. "What do you want in here?"
"I want to greet my cousins. If you don't let me come in Mr. Fox will catch me after dark. I have no other home."
"You're not a rabbit!" replied the other. "We have no white cousins. There're no white rabbits in the world."
"But I'm one," returned Bumper, amused by the same cry that had been made by the crow and birds. ”

“ Wherever there is sufficient food and his enemies are not too oppressive the Rabbit has extended his range to the most out-of-the-way corners of these islands. A century ago it was a scarce beast in Scotland, but it is now to be found in abundance up to the extreme north. It is found also all over Ireland. Its chief enemies, in addition to man, are all the members of the Weasel family, the Owls, and the Hawks.
Every one who has come across a party of Rabbits feeding must have noticed how conspicuous the white underside of the upturned tail makes them in flight. ”

“ Pine Grosbeak plucked up courage to approach nearer.
"If you're really alive," he said, "let me pluck some of those beautiful white hairs as souvenirs. I never saw such lovely fur before."
"You can have one hair," laughed Bumper, "just to prove to you that I'm a real live rabbit."
Mr. Pine Grosbeak took him at his word, and plucked a hair from his back. It made Bumper wince.
"Surely you'll give me one, too, for my nest," added Piney the Purple Finch, and without waiting for consent he plucked two. Rusty the Blackbird came swooping down next. ”

“ Perhaps, after all, Rusty had exaggerated the danger, and nothing would come of Spotted Tail’s work.
So one morning he was greatly disturbed when there was a noise outside the burrow made by the pattering of many little feet. It was Goggle Eyes who brought the information in to Old Blind Rabbit.
“There is something in the wind, Old Blind Rabbit!” he exclaimed in excitement. “All the rabbits of the woods have come to visit us. There’s White Tail, with his huge family; Pink Nose and all his big sons; Crooked Ears, looking surly and angry; Brindley the Lame, Rolly Polly, and—oh!—many, many more!” ”

“ One day a pack of hounds drew near to him, but fled again when they saw the wolf. Another time a cat crept close to the doves, but took flight before the three dogs with their spiked collars, and a ferret who lay in wait for the lamb had to seek a hiding-place from the birds of prey. Rabbit, himself, frightened away the swallows who attacked the owl. ”

“ She didn't always get the loaf of bread, but the rabbits always had their cabbage. They were all pink-eyed, white rabbits, and people were willing to pay good prices for them. But the whitest and pinkest-eyed of them all was Bumper, a tiny rabbit when he was born, and not very big when the old woman took him away on his first trip to the street corner. Bumper had never seen so many people before, and he was a little shy and frightened at first; but Jimsy and Wheedles, his brothers, laughed at his fears, and told him not to mind. ”

“ The Common or Wild Rabbit.—This well-known rodent belong to the same family (Leporidæ) as the hare, but is smaller in size, and its hind legs and ears are shorter. In the wild state the fur of the rabbit is a greyish-brown; the colour under domestication, however, changes frequently to black, white or other shades. The fur is used for many purposes, as the manufacture of hats, the imitation of more costly furs, etc. The rabbit is one of the most prolific of animals in Australia and New Zealand, where it was introduced from England, it has increased so rapidly as to become a serious pest. ”

“ Rabbits in a WARREN are supposed the most prolific and profitable animal of any that contributes to human subsistence: these warrens are common in many parts of the kingdom, but more particularly in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, {205} Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire, by the three last of which counties the Metropolis is supplied for its almost infinite consumption. The scent of a rabbit is exceedingly faint in comparison with the HARE, FOX, or FALLOW DEER; they, however, by jumping up suddenly, frequently lead hounds a little astray, but cannot stand long before them. ”

“ The fur is greatly in request for the making of imitation ermine, and good skins are always saleable to the manufacturers. Now that we have this beautiful little rabbit in our hutch, how are we to preserve its distinctive markings in all their beauty? For be it remembered that the white turns yellow, and the black or dark brown markings grey, unless proper attention is paid to them. In Chinese or Russian markets where these rabbits are on sale, we are told that the colour, especially on the feet, is not so distinct as is seen in our domestic specimens ”

“ How empty the woods and willow patches become with the decline of the rabbits and the departure of the lynx. It is like an empty stage after the actors have finished their play and departed. Scattered through the quiet woods are their signs of life and activity, but the action has stopped. On the tall willows, 6 feet from the ground, is the gnawed white rabbit-line, where rabbits had sat on the snow and gnawed the bark within reach. In places the ground is littered with severed twigs, many of them partially gnawed. ”

“ But the rabbit, though not of so flexible a nature as the hare, being less diffused, and seemingly confined to particular countries, is, nevertheless, subject to more variations; because the hare is in every part of the world wild, whereas the rabbit is almost every where half domesticated. The wild rabbits have varied in their colours, from fallow to white or black; they have also varied in size, and in the quantity and quality of their fur. This animal, which is originally a native of Spain, has acquired a long tail in Tartary, and a thick bushy coat in Syria. ”

“ The rabbits (pretty innocent little creatures I had thought them, as I gazed at their representatives of white canton flannel, solidly stuffed, with such charming eyes of pink beads) girded all my young trees and killed them before I dreamed of such mischief, nibbled at every tender sprout, every swelling bud, were so agile that they could not be captured, and became such a maddening nuisance that I hired a boy to take them away. I fully understand the recent excitement of the Australians over the rabbit scourge which threatened to devastate their land. ”

“ In desperation, Bumper then added: "But look at my tail! Did a Sewer Rat or any other kind of a Rat have a tail like mine?"
"Where is it?" asked the big Bat. "I don't see any tail at all. All rabbits have white tails, and you haven't any at all."
Bumper wagged the stump of tail that he thought would convince the bats, but for a moment, he wasn't exactly sure that he saw it himself. Instead of a white, fluffy stub of a tail as soft as cotton, he saw the dirtiest, blackest [Pg 63] wad of hair waving in the air that had ever disgraced a rabbit. The truth flashed upon his mind in an instant. ”

“ It is hardly fair to judge the modern domesticated rabbit by these standards. He is an entirely different animal from the wild rabbit. He is built different, he grows different and he achieves a different purpose entirely. The wild cotton tail rarely attains a weight of more than five pounds, while a New Zealand Red doe will weigh ten pounds at the age of one year. Flemish Giants have been produced weighing as much as twenty-four pounds when matured.
The modern domesticated rabbit is a hutch bred rabbit. ”

“ Three poor dogs that wore spiked collars and wagged their tails preceded the man, and an ancient wolf was licking the hem of his garment. A ewe and her lamb, bleating, uncertain, and enraptured, pressed forward amid the crocuses and trod upon their emerald, while three hawks began to play with the two doves. A timid night-bird whistled with joy amid the acorns. Then it spread its wings and overtook the hawks and the doves, the lamb and the ewe, the dogs, the wolf, and the man.
And the man approached Rabbit and said to him:
"I am Francis. I love thee and I greet thee, Oh thou, my brother. ”

“ But a little consideration of the habits of the animal will show that the white upturned tail is of the greatest value, and is really, as it has been termed by a writer in The Field, a "signal flag of danger." For the rabbit is usually a crepuscular animal, feeding soon after sunset or on moonlight nights. When disturbed or alarmed it makes for its burrow, and the white upturned tails of those in front serve as guides and signals to those more remote from home, to the young and the feeble ”

“ If the hungry hunter happened to be a mink or a weasel he could crawl in after them and kill them.
The bunnies did not try to dig their own holes. They were really hares, though they were so much like rabbits, who were true burrowers. Once in the woods the bravest bunny saw a true rabbit. This rabbit had a family of little ones in a deep burrow. They had been born blind and naked, but the little hares had been born with their eyes open and fur on their bodies. True rabbits were brought to America from across the sea. ”

“ For the same reason adult white rabbits are very rare in the wild state, because they form such excellent targets for owls in their early infancy. Rabbits, when tamed, as we all know, tend to "sport" in color to a surprising extent; but this tendency is repressed in the wild condition by the selective action of the common owl, which promptly picks off every rabbit that does not harmonize well in the dusk of evening with the bracken and furze among whose stalks it feeds.
All the flat-fish are carnivorous. ”

“ The rabbit has its wild enemies, ever watchful, ever close on its trail. The hawk, the mink, the weasel, the fox, the lynx, and others are rabbit hunters. Besides his quick hearing, and his swiftness, Br'er Rabbit has a wonderful power of becoming invisible. His nondescript colour, combined with his ability to "freeze," serve him as well as a cloak of darkness. The cotton-tail rabbit is commonest in the Middle and Southern states, while his bigger cousin, the varying hare, overlaps the rabbit's territory in the colder parts, and takes his place in the most Northern states. ”

“ He was so black with the dust and mud of the drain-pipe that it was misleading to call himself a white rabbit. He was far from it. He was as dark as any wild rabbit of the woods—darker, in fact, for there was no white fur under his stomach or around his stubby tail.
He was so confused by this discovery that he could not find his tongue to make reply. The Bats, accepting his silence as proof that his deception had been found out, suddenly beat their wings and set up a terrible uproar.
"It's the Sewer Rat in disguise!" shouted the big leader of the Bats. "Now we'll punish him! ”

“ The ermine is one of the smallest of all hunters, but it can throw an enemy off the scent by diving under snow. The rabbit is one of the most helpless of all hunted things, but it can take cover from foes of the air under thorny brush, and run fast enough to outwind the breath of a pursuer, and double back quick enough to send a harrying eagle flopping head over heels on the ground, and simulate the stillness of inanimate objects surrounding it so truly that the passer-by can scarcely distinguish the balls of fawn fur from the russet bark of a log. ”

“ Bumper was so busy filling his little stomach with green, succulent things that he scarcely noticed the other's hesitation.
"—and," continued Mr. Frog, after a pause, "some animals prefer eating rats, lizards, toads, and rabbits."
"Rabbits!" exclaimed Bumper. "Who eats rabbits?"
"Mr. Fox for one," answered the Frog, "and if my eyes don't deceive me there's one in the bushes waiting to eat you. If you'll excuse me, I'll take a dive. I've known Mr. Fox to eat frogs when he was very hungry."
There was a flop in the water, and the bullfrog disappeared from sight. ”

“ It is marvellous to note with what a venomous hatred the beater regards the bunny. Pheasant or partridge he is careless of; even the hare is, in comparison, a thing of nought, but let him once set eyes on a rabbit, and his whole being seems to change. His eye absolutely flashes, his chest heaves with excitement beneath the ancient piece of sacking that protects his form from thorns. If the rabbit falls to the shot, he yells with exultation; if it be missed, an expression of morose and gloomy disappointment settles on his face, as who should say, "Things are played out; the world is worthless!" ”

“ In this month, the brown-jacketed American hare, which our folk will persist in calling Rabbit—though it neither lives in warrens, nor burrows habitually under ground, and though it breeds not every month in the year, which are the true distinctive characteristics of the Rabbit—is in his prime of conditions, the leverets of the season, plump and well grown; and the old bucks and does, recruited after the breeding season, in high health and strength, and now legitimate food for gunpowder, legitimate quarry for the chase of the merry beagles. ”

“ Rabbits live in burrows, which are irregular in construction and often communicate with each other. From many of its foes the Rabbit escapes by diving into its burrow, but there are some animals, as the Weasel and Ferret, which follow it into its subterranean home and slay it. Dogs, especially those of the small terrier breeds, will often force their way into the burrows, where they have sometimes paid the penalty of their lives for their boldness. ”

“ Generally, the rabbits are prized for the number of these black spots upon the head and body, and for the fineness and length and size of the ears, which occasions their falling about the head, in a manner different from the common rabbit. Black and tortoise-shell are the favourite colours.
Rabbits are divided into four kinds—warreners, parkers, hedgehogs, and sweethearts. Burrowing under ground is favourable, it appears, to the growth of fur; and the warrener, though a member of a subterraneous city, is less effeminate than his kindred who roam more at large. ”