Little Harry feeding his Rabbits.

NEW-YORK

D. APPLETON & CO. 200 BROADWAY.

The care with which a doe rabbit provides for its young is very remarkable. She not only makes a nest of the softest hay, from which she carefully munches out all the harder portions, but she actually strips the fur or down off her own breast, to spread over the hay. At first she covers up her young ones with the same materials, in order to keep them warm, uncovering them only for the purpose of giving them suck. She is also extremely careful in proportioning this covering to the severity of the weather, and the tenderness or strength of her offspring, gradually diminishing it as they grow more robust.

If rabbits are kept and raised apart from their mother, it is then necessary that proper attention should be paid to them by the person who undertakes to raise them. That is the reason why you see little Harry feeding his rabbits. Little Harry is the only son of a poor woman who lives in a small cottage at the end of a lane on a large farm in this state belonging to[70] a wealthy and thriving farmer. Although the farmer is very kind to Harry’s mother, allowing her to have the use of the cottage and an acre of ground free of rent, still the old woman has hard work to live comfortably. Knowing the advantages to be derived from the possession of a good education, she deprives herself of many comforts to enabl............