Country Life
The rabbiting trade has been flourishing lately. I meet one or two teams of rabbiters setting out for the back country almost every morning or afternoon. The expeditions might not be so well-advertised were it not for the spade or shovel that all of them take along. A spade fastened to the crossbar of a bicycle means that a ferret is being carried somewhere, even although there is no ferret box to be seen. Some rabbiters dispense with a travel- ling box and keep, the poor ferret in a little black bag with a string at the neck like an old-fashioned purse. The string of the bag is always very tightly drawn and knotted be- cause a ferret can squirm and wriggle its way through an incredibly small hole. The bag is a little one because the less room the ferret bas the less disturbance it can make in an overcoat pocket. Since the little beast is worth pound before the season starts and often a good bit more when business is thriving, few of the rabbiters, those with permission or those without, would chance going without the means of recovering the main item of equip- ment. First on the list of tools is the spade, for without one the books might show a loss so bad that, even with low overheads, the team might go out of business for good.
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