The Flavour of Rabbit I met Dick coming, down from
one of the farms, and he carried a rabbit. It was a very particular kind of rabbit, he told me, for it had been drained of its blood by a stoat. There was nothing new in this for me, for I have known for a long time that some country people believe that a stoat-drained rabbit has whiter flesh and is more like chicken on that account. I have never been able to find out how much of its victim's blood a stoat takes, but I doubt whether it takes enough to have much effect on the colour of the flesh. The flavour of a rabbit depends on whether the paunch is removed before it is cold or allowed to remain and taint the flesh. If a rabbit is badly shot and the intes- tines punctured, the taste is bitter unless great care is taken in prepar- ing the meat for the pot, but sometimes there is even more to the question of flavour. Once I watched a rabbit being knocked over by a car. I picked it up and killed it at once. It was intact except for an injury to the head, but when cooked it proved to be so bitter that no one would eat it. Now this rabbit may have been partial to a herb that gave its flesh that special flavour, but 1 am inclined to think it was caused by glandular action brought about by shock; and the same may be true of rabbits that have been killed by such things as snares and traps that do not in any way damage the edible parts.
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