Recovered Vermin A less desirable mammal also is multiplying. Rabbits
had almost disappeared from many districts, thanks rather to their value as food than to the campaign of poisoning, One favourite rabbit-haunt well known to me has been altogether tenantless for two years, thanks, I should say, almost wholly to the wire noose. At any rate I picked up nine of these in one short stroll, and have since seen neither noose nor rabbit. Things are very different in the West and indeed in many Midland districts, where the useful poacher grows rare owing to the war. > Some farmers demand the use of poison ; but " they love not poison who do poison need." It was the opinion of one of the most energetic of our humani- tarians (who pratised what she preached on her 'awn considerable estate) that the ferret and the gun were the best weapons, on humanitarian grounds as well as for the effective destruction of this most edible pest. It is perhaps not everywhere appreciated that the absence of rabbits encourages the multiplication of partridges. Though the rabbit does not, of course, attack the partridge or pheasant (though it may occasionally trample on a nest) the two do not as a rule consent to a mutual relation. The fact has been persuasively demonstrated on more than one estate.
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