Yes, the rabbits have been nibbling at the bark around the foot of a stand of ash planted for fuel against the time when the oil runs out world wide. The trees, nearly twenty years old now are perhaps eight and nine inches in diameter near the base, and none have so far been completely ring barked, which would mean the end. But when the hard weather is over, the rabbits will have something better to graze on. Of course you could shoot them for the pot. Why do we not eat more of this meat? And the reluctance goes far back to the days before myxomatosis. The French, for example, who know how to eat, breed rabbits and hares solely for the table on quite a scale. Now they have a new dodge - artificial insemination of both rabbits and hares. We know of it in bigger creatures, but this is a new one. The chief aim is to improve hunting (shooting), but hunting is largely for the table in that table conscious people. More of that later.
It's worth noting that that great woman Mrs Beeton gives much attention to rabbits. She divides, them, incidentally, into four categories: warreners, parkers, hedgehogs and sweethearts. Warreners, obviously, are those that live in a "subterranean community"; the parker "whose favourite resort is a gentleman's pleasure ground, where he breeds in great numbers and from which he frequently drives away the hares". The hedgehog rabbit she swears, roams "tinker like" about the country and would have a better coat on his back if he were more settled. The sweetheart is the tame rabbit with soft, slinky and silky fur, which is good for "the important branch of hat making". So, class distinctions among the lower animals, too, in Victorian times.
Back to the artificial inseminators. They are an association in the Aveyron. Sure enough, if you can do it for cattle or horses, you can do it for hares and rabbits. Take hares. One male, they say, can be used to inseminate almost a hundred females.
Hares reared in captivity, says the article, normally reach four pounds weight at three months. But by careful choosing of males for insemination purposes, they can produce three month old leverets of five or six pounds weight. And they still bear the characteristics of the wild animal.
As to rabbits, they hope also to be able to produce a strain which is resistant to myxomatosis. A big point they make is that when a new animal is introduced to a breeding area, there is always some danger of contagion. In semination means there is no physical contact between the animals. Much more about it in Le Chasseur Francais. They do take their shooting seriously.