We have received from independent sources con- firmation of the
terrible facts which Sir William Beach Thomas has reported in connexion with the trapping of rabbits, particularly in the West of England and Wales. The facts are much worse than we could have thought possible. Rabbit-skins have become valuable. That is the origin of the horror. It is a strange paradox that in the counties where so much trapping is going on rabbits are not decreasing. The explanation, how- ever, is really simple. The enemies of the rabbits are also destroyed—also trapped. And birds of every kind and domestic animals, besides rabbits and so-called vermin, are all victims of the steel-trap. The regulations that traps must not be set in the open and must be visited within twelve hours are freely broken. It would be possible to license trappers and to insist on the use of humane traps, of which there are already, we believe, two or three kinds ; but our own feeling is that, as it is generally easy to evade laws in connexion with animal life, it would be best to make the law as comprehensive as possible and prohibit steel-traps altogether.
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