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The Rabbit and the Hare in Wales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Colin Matheson
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Extract

The rabbit shares one characteristic with the archaeologist—both dig into the earth. Hence the latter, contemplating some object or evidence revealed by his spade, may sometimes be viewing merely the result of the activities of a humbler but much more numerous type of excavator. Is he not warned to ‘always make sure that an apparent post-hole is not a rabbit- or rat-hole’? And does not Professor James Ritchie describe the rabbit as ‘a burrower and a vandal which makes short cuts through the neat layers and classifications of the excavator’? On the other hand, the rabbit's activity or lack of it may on occasion be of service; it was a long patch of virgin turf on Easton Down, untouched by rabbits or moles, which led Dr Stone in 1932 to remove the turf, thus revealing a layer of tightly packed flint nodules covering a Bronze Age urn-field. Hence no apology, we feel, is needed for an article on the rabbit in a journal primarily concerned with archaeological research; particularly as much of the article deals with the status of the rabbit in medieval times, a topic which has already figured briefly in ANTIQUITY.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 15 , Issue 60 , December 1941 , pp. 371 - 381
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1941

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References

1 Notes on Archaeological Technique (Oxford University Archaeological Society), p. 19.

2 The Influence of Man on Animal Life in Scotland, p. 247.

3 1936. pp. 364. 462–3.

4 See The Times of 6, 7, 23, 28 May 1936.

5 General View of the Agriculture of the County of Westmorland (Newcastle, 1797), p. 332.

6 Changes in the Fauna of Wales within Historic Times, and ‘ Notes on Domestic and Wild Animals in Montgomeryshire ‘ (Montgomeryshire Collections, 1933).

7 The Antiquary, 1911, p. 302.

8 Archaeologia Cambrensis, 1884, pp. 276–8.

9 Cardiff Records, edited by J. H. Matthews, 1, 152.

10 ibid. p. 175.

11 A Booke of Glamorganshires Antiquities, edited by J. A. Corbett, p. 113.

12 Cymmrodorion Record Series no. 7, Calendar of Public Records relating to Pembrokeshire, 1, 62–3, 68, 80, 103–6, etc.

13 E. A. Lewis, Medieval Boroughs of Snowdonia, p. 192.

14 Emily M. Pritchard, History of St. Dogmael’s Abbey, pp. 145–6, 150–1.

15 Cymmrodorion Record Series no. 1, ‘The Description of Penbrokshire’, pp. 111–3, 268.

16 The Itinerary in Wales of John Leland in or about the years 1536–1539, edited by Lucy T. Smith, pp. 53, 88, 92.

17 Tours in Wales (1810 edition), 111, pp. 39, 69, and 11, p. 113.

18 General View of the Agriculture and Domestic Economy of North Wales, p. 347

19 History of the Parishes of Whiteford and Holywell, p. 144.

20 For example, I have given in The Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, May 1940, pp. 177–87, particulars of wild cats, foxes and ravens destroyed in a Merionethshire parish in the early years of the eighteenth century.

21 In the Annual Report for 1892–3 of the Nilghiri Game and Fish Preservation Association, under the heading ‘ Exotic and Introduced Game ‘ we read ‘ The game- watcher reports that he occasionally sees Rabbits, but they have probably scattered and are not likely to increase very fast in such a vermin-infested district as Kartéri.’

22 J. G. Millais, Mammals of Great Britain and Ireland, 111, 53.

23 A. H. Dodd, The Industrial Revolution in North Wales, pp. 50–2

24 pp. 503, 511.

25 H. E. Forrest, The Vertebrate Fauna of North Wales, p. 246.

26 Tours in Wales (1810 edition), 111, 173–4.

27 A. W. Wade-Evans, Welsh Medieval Law, p. 225.

28 Matheson, Changes in the Fauna of Wales within Historic Times, p. 85 ; see also I. C. Peate in ANTIQUITY, 1934, pp. 73–80.

29 Owen, op. cit. pp. 265–6.

30 See Archaeologia Cambrensis, 1938, p. 36.

31 Forrest, op. cit. p. 57.

32 The increase of the rabbits is in fact illustrated for this estate by statistics going back as far as 1859, though these have not been utilized in the text figure because strictly comparable statistics are not available for the hares. The numbers of rabbits recorded for the earlier years are :—1859–63, 1009; 1864–8, 5085; 1869–73, 3935; and 1874–8, 3775.