The Sun.
London, England, 1868-12-26 00:00:00

RABBIT SHOOTING.

We once heard a Buckingham farmer relieve his mind
on the subject of rabbits, and he concluded by saying, " I
wish there was but one rabbit in the world, and that I had
hold of him by the hind-legs." What would have become
of that solitary rabbit we shudderto think. Certainly his
chance of disporting himself of a summer evening among
the young corn would have been small. Admitting the great
damage done by rabbits compared with that done by winged
game, still the rabbit is of infinite use to the preserver of
game. He protects the more valuable pheasant from the
foxes, and he helps wonderfully to swell the return at the
end of a day's cover-shooting. He is a remarkably jolly
playful little fellow, too. Watch him in the twilight as
he hops out of his hole, and between each jump nibbles a
bit of young clover, then sits up on his hind-legs looking
about him, washes his face, stamps upon the ground, and
then chases one of his friends and neighbours in a circle
over the green. It would be a shame to improve him off
the face of the earth. However, of that there is little
likelihood. Even in some parts of Australia he has
increased and multiplied to such an extent as to have
become a serious nuisance. There are two ways of rabbit
shooting pure and simple : the one with ferrets, which is
by no means a lively occupation in cold weather, the
rabbits generally declining to bolt from their holes with
sufficient rapidity, unless, as a warrener once told us, "the
sign is in their toes," which we believe had some vague
reference to Old Moore's Almanack ; and the other with
beagles in the open. Of all delightful enjoyments on a
frosty Christmas•day, commend us to this sport. It com-
bines hunting and shooting ; there is hard running for
those who like it, and there is plenty of opportunity for
exercising judgment by those who prefer that their heads
should save their heels. What can be more glorious,
when the ground is hard with frost and the hunters are
confined to walking exercise, than to find oneself on a
broad Surrey heath with a light breechloader, three
friends, and five or six couples of beagles ? There are but
few earths, and those few are stopped, so that the rabbit,
when found, runs almost like a hare. With two guns on
either side of the keeper, who hunts the dogs, the draw
begins ; soon one of them gives tongue, and a moment
after the whole pack joins in ; then let those who
can run keep with the leading dogs. The heather
is so high and so close that until the rabbit is tired
out he can seldom be seen ; but as he gets beaten he
is less careful to shelter himself, and a shot rewards tht
sportsman lucky enough to be up at the time. However,
the race is not always to the swift : perhaps after a half-
mile chase, always abreast of the leading dogs, a sudden
turn to the right or left and a double back will let in
a less active man, who has taken no part in the chase.
To enjoy this sport in perfection, rabbits should
neither be very scarce nor very plentiful too
much time spent in the draw is tedious, while too many
rabbits up at once bother the clogs, and prevent their stick-
ing to the hunted game, which will seldom sliew itself for a
shot until hard pressed. A considerable percentage of the
rabbits will be shot immediately on their being found, but
the greater number will give runs varying from five to
ten minutes, so that a bag of from twenty to thirty rabbits
means a thoroughly good day's sport. Of course there is
an occasional shot at a hare or a woodcock, and now and
then at a pheasant strayed from a neighbouring cover.
There is another advantage attending this amuse-
ment—every man is allowed to make as much noise as
he pleases ; he can cheer on the dogs, encourage the
diligent and admonish the skulker, without fear of
a reprimand. There is no autocrat of the hunting-field
here, before whose strong language he must stand guiltily
mute should his enthusiasm have got the better of his dis-
cretion ; but every man does that which is right in the
sight of his own eyes. Of rabbit as an accessory to other
shooting little need be said. Everyone knows how dull
many a good day's cover-shooting would have been had
the rabbits been eliminated, and how a few rabbits
lying in the open on a frosty day increase the pleasure
of wild rough sport. A shot every quarter of an
hour is needful to keep np the excitement and to prevent
the attention from flagging, and towards the end of the
season this would not be got without the rabbit. Of
course we are not writing for the heroes of the battue,
whose stock of tame pheasants is never diminished, but is
carefully kept up by supplies sent from London, packed in
stocking legs, and turned into the covers an hour or two
before the arrival of the shooting party. To the genuine
sportsman the actual shooting of game gives less satis-
faction than hunting for and finding it; but still there
must be probability of finding and shooting. That rabbits
do much damage when they are preserved in large quan-
titles on cultivated land no one will deny. So great,
indeed, is the damage on some farms, that it is doubtful
whether a remission of the whole rent of the land would
be a sufficient compensation ; but it is folly to deduce
from a few extreme cases an argument for the extermina-
tion of the poor rabbit, and we should be indeed sorry to
see the last individual of his race in the grasp of our friend
the Buckinghamshire farmer.—London Review.

THE SOLAR HEAT. —How TO MAKE THE POT
BOIL.—M. Mouckat, who has been experimenting on the
utilisation of the solar heat, hist week sent a paper on this
subject to the Academy of Sciences. He states that, accord-
ing to his experiments, upwards of three-sixths of the solar
heat might be gathered at a small cost. At Paris a surface
of one square metre normally exposed to the rays of the sun
receives, on an average, at any time of the year, on afine day,
ten units of caloric per minute. Such a quantity of heat
would make a litre of water at freezing-point boil in ten
minutes, and is equivalent to the theoretical action of a
one-horse power. He further states that he had proved
the possibility of keeping hot-air machines agoing by
means of solar rays, and had succeeded in making a few
litres of water boil by exposure to the same agent ; and in
June 1866 he had made a small steam-engine work by
converting water into vapour with the assistance of a re-
flector one metre square.

A CLERGYMAN'S WIFE BURNT TO DEATII.-Mr.
G. H. Hull, coroner for West Surrey, has held an inquest
at Chiddingfold, near Godalming, on the body of Mrs.
Annie Humbert, aged 45. It appeared that the deceased
was the wife of a clergyman at Chiddingfold, and for
some time past had been helpless and paralysed in speech.
On the afternoon of Wednesday, the 16th inst., she was
taken out for an airing, and on her return to her residence
her maid placed her in a chair in the library at a reasonable
distance f om the fire, wh'elt was protected by a guard.
The maid left the room for three or four minutes, and on
tier return was horrified to find that her mistress had
fallen upon the fire, on which her head was lying, and
her garments were in flames. She called for assistance,
and the cook and other persons coining into the room, the
unfortunate woman was extricated from her shocking
position, and her burning garments having been extin-
guished, she was carried to an upper apartment. Dr.
Lawton was called in, and, upon examination, found that
she was dreadfully burnt, the muscles of the left arm
being laid bare, the skin of the back and shoulders charred
and blackened, and the head much scorched. He applied
Cie usual remedies, but the case was of such a desperate
nature that the utmost which skill and attention could
suggest was of no avail, and the deceased expired on Satur•
lay, without having been able to explain the origin of the
accident. The jury, returned a verdict of accidental
ila'►th.