Nothing keeps down rabbits more thoroughly than a soaking wet summer; while heavy rains drown the partridge and pheasant broods above ground, they also drown the little rabbits in their furry nests below. Yet in times of drought, when herbage is parched and sapless, the keeper who supplies water for the rabbits to drink in arid, sandy warrens does much for the prosperity of the does and their young. Rabbits eat their young when in want of water, and a dry summer puts a check on the increase of rats, since the old ones kill the young for their blood. With rabbits, a favourite place is always a dry spot by the side of water, although the ground is likely to be favoured by stoats. Rabbits found in such places are always extra fine and fat. * * * * * Puppies at Walk "Please drive cautiously. Hound puppies are at walk in the village." We came upon this notice nailed to the trunk of an ash on the road outside a village in Hampshire. The inference suggested itself that so long as those who might drive furiously through the village touched no hair of a hound puppy's head nothing else mattered. Usually, it is the old-fashioned notices that bring a smile to the passer-by's face: "Beware of Man-traps," "Spring Guns," "Dog-spears set here." Walking along the River Stort we have been startled by a notice beside some of the locks, "The Punishment for Tampering with these Works is Transportation." "Trespassers will be Punished by Transportation" would be a suitable legend for a board in a strictly preserved wood, hinting that if you do not go quietly on request the keeper will carry you. Reading the new caution to drivers outside the Hampshire village, we were tempted to simplify it thus: "Beware of hound puppies." It is pleasant to see young hounds basking in the sun in the farm-yard; but when they are at walk in the charge of the village butcher they may be more than a general nuisance; they may terrorise the place. People who walk hounds do not always undertake the honour because they like it, but because they cannot well refuse. The hounds are turned out into the streets to prowl at large--they slaughter poultry, spread havoc in many a garden plot, knock down children, and roam in through open cottage doors, to steal the labourer's dinner from off his very table. A pack of hounds under the control of a firm huntsman and his whips is one thing--but hounds at walk, allowed to wander at their will, are a peril to the community. "Beware of hound puppies"--when they come up treacherously behind you. * * * * * Schooling the Puppies