Abstract
ONLY those who live in the country can properly appreciate the damage done by rabbits, where they are at all numerous. As all gardeners know, the losses they inflict in the course of the year are both serious and exasperating; and farmers, in many parts of the country, suffer even more severely. Mr. Kirkman, then, has done us great service by presenting in this small volume an able and impartial summary of the methods of ‘farming’ rabbits for the market, on one hand, and their destruction as ‘vermin’ on the other. From whichever of these two aspects they are regarded, the manner of their slaughter is an issue of the first importance, which forms the main theme of Mr. Kirkman's book. Its aim is to secure legislation to prohibit the use of steel-traps. He has shown how ineffective they are for their avowed purpose of reducing the rabbit-pest, as well as the harm they do—apart from the cruelty which attends their use—in killing or maiming other animals more or less directly useful to man.
Man versus Rabbit.
By A. H. B. Kirkman. (ULAWS Monographs, No. 4b.) Second edition, entirely rewritten. Pp. vi + 74 + 9 plates. (London: University of London Animal Welfare Society, 1934.) 1s.
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[Short Notices]. Nature 135, 207 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135207a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135207a0