COUNTRY LIFE
FRIENDSHIPS between animals of different kinds are inexplicable hap- penings, but always fascinating. Perhaps this is so because they give free rein to the imagination. Someone, who has not supplied name or address, has sent me a clipping from a recent issue of The Shetland News giving an account of an attachment of a rabbit for a sheep. The wild rabbit conies out in the evening and approaches the sheep, standing on its hind legs and clawing the fleece until the sheep lies down. Having achieved this, the rabbit lies on the sheep's outstretched neck and goes to sleep. The sheep's wool, says the report, has actually become matted owing to its frequent use as a pillow for the rabbit. A zoologist might produce a theory to fit this strange associa- tion, but. I find it baffling, like stories of the apparent friendship between fowl and horse, cat and dog and even cat and mouse. Certain creatures associate because one depends on the other for food or pro- tection. Rabbit and sheep live on the same pasture, and -both crop grass; but what more they have in common can hardly account for this story from Lerwick.
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