18 JUNE 1927, Page 12

It is at first sight a little surprising to find

the multiplication of rabbits coinciding with the increased trade in their corpses. The reason seems to be that their natural enemies are killed off—foxes, stoats, weasels and cats ; and that the trappers take every care to leave a breeding stock, and at certain seasons they release the does when they find one not too badly hurt. The only enemy of the rabbit that increases, so far as my personal observation goes, is the buzzard. This greatest of our hawks is -common where it used to be rare, in Pembroke- shire and North Devon, the two places where I have seen the worst excesses of the trappers.