RABBITS FOR FOOD
SIR,—May I answer the letters of your correspondents about rabbits in your issue of November loth? Nothing I have written applies to tame rabbits, with which no one can have any quarrel. As regards weight, I have always been careful to give the rabbit the benefit of any doubt. In calculating his food value I therefore said that eight might weigh about 40 lbs. If they weigh less it strengthens my argument. The amount which they eat per diem has been scientifically ascer- tained by recent experiments conducted at Dauntsey's School. Unfortunately I no longer have the figures by me, but one of the authorities on dietetics, to whom I was referred at the Library of the British Medical Association, says, " All small animals, such as rabbits, are necessarily expensive forms of meat, both on account of their active metabolism, which implies that the greater part of the food they eat is lost in heat . . . " and because of their relatively large viscera. (Hutchinson and Mottram. Food and the Principles of Dietetics. Page 9x.) I take this to mean that the rabbit eats an excessive amount for his weight and wastes most of it in running about and scratching holes.—Yours, &c., Knowl Hill, Kingsclere, Newbury. R. SPERLING.
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