they are placed far out upon the branches, several close together,
showing as large dense masses of sticks and twigs. Year after year the
young are killed, and yet the rookery is not abandoned, nor the old
birds discouraged. It is to be added that this species is not the
carrion crow, like ours, though so closely resembling it in appearance.
It picks up its subsistence about the fields, and is not considered an
unclean bird. The British carrion crow is a much more rare species. It
is a strong, fierce bird, and often attacks and kills young lambs or
rabbits.
What is true of the birds is true of the rabbits, and probably of the
other smaller animals. The British rabbit breeds seven times a year, and
usually produces eight young at a litter; while, so far as I have
observed, the corresponding species in this country breeds not more than
twice, producing from three to four young. The western gray rabbit is
said to produce three or four broods a year of four to six young. It is
calculated that in England a pair of rabbits will, in the course of four
years, multiply to one million two hundred and fifty thousand. If
unchecked for one season, this game would eat the farmers up. In the
parks of the Duke of Hamilton, the rabbits were so numerous that I think
one might have fired a gun at random with his eyes closed and knocked
them over. They scampered right and left as I advanced, like leaves
blown by the wind. Their cotton tails twinkled thicker than fireflies in
our summer night. In the Highlands, where there were cultivated lands,
and in various other parts of England and Scotland that I visited, they
were more abundant than chipmunks in our beechen woods. The revenue
derived from the sale of the ground game on some estates is an
important item. The rabbits are slaughtered in untold numbers throughout
the island. They shoot them, and hunt them with ferrets, and catch them
in nets and gins and snares, and they are the principal game of the
poacher, and yet the land is alive with them. Thirty million skins are
used up annually in Great Britain, besides several million hare skins.
The fur is used for stuffing beds, and is also made into yarn and cloth.
But the Colorado beetle is our own, and it shows many of the European
virtues. It is sufficiently prolific and persistent to satisfy any
standard; but we cannot claim all the qualities for it till it has
crossed the Atlantic and established itself on the other side.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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