NOTES.
187
Affection of a Rabbit for Her Young.—I have just been a witness of
how a rabbit can be brave in the defence of her young, even in the presence of a
destructive enemy. Walking one afternoon last week with my host to look at his
flock of lambs, we were startled to hear the cry of a rabbit close by. Running to
an opening in the hedge, I saw on the bank of a narrow meadow the following
scene :—A large brush tailed stoat had seized one of a litter of rabbits, and before
he could quite kill it, was twice driven off by one or both of the parents. We saw
one of the old ones fighting it, the young one had been too much hurt to run into
the hedge again, and lay on the grass, now and then jumping up. On the old
rabbit retreating, the stoat immediately returned, and dragged the little rabbit into
the hedge, pursued all the while by a little bird, some sort of a chat, which kept
flying at the stoat, uttering piercing screams all the while. The way the stoat
carried off a rabbit certainly bigger than itself, showed the strength and ferocity
of the creature, but the most interesting feature of the contest, if such it can be
called, was the courage and instinct of the poor little bird, who evidently knew
murder was being committed, and did its best to prevent it.—B. MORRIS,
"Bucklers," Great Tey, Essex, in "Field," August 27th, 1887.
A Stoat's Larder.—A neighbour of mine, missing some small chickens from
a coop close to his house, set a steel trap, and next morning he found in it the two
fore feet of a stoat. He tracked the animal into a hole close by, and, after
stubbing some time, he came upon seven young stoats, fifteen partridges' eggs
(some whole, others sucked), and sundry small rabbits and skins.—Edward
Catchpool, Feering Bury, near Kelvedon, in "Field," July 23rd, 1887.
Descent of a Denehole at Bexley, Kent.—On Saturday, September 3rd,
the Sidcup Literary and Scientific Society had an excursion, under the guidance
of Mr. F. C. J. Spurrell, to the Earthworks and Deneholes of Jorden's Wood,
Bexley. The "Hut Circles," situated where "Site of the City of Caswallon"
appears on the six-inch Ordnance Map, were first visited. Here Mr. Spurrell was
amused to find that a much larger hole adjoining the hut excavations, which he
had marked as a probable denehole seven or eight years ago, had confirmed his
view, a nearly cylindrical subsidence now showing itself in its centre, about the
diameter of a denehole shaft, and two feet in depth. The various earthworks
north of the hut circles, their probable relative ages, and the purposes for which
they were constructed, were discussed by Mr. Spurrell, with the aid of a large and
elaborate plan, made by him some years ago, a reduction of which may be seen
accompanying his well-known paper on Deneholes (Arch. Journal, No. 152,
Pl. I.). The denehole selected for descent was that seen on the plate just referred
to about 100 yards S.E. of the spot where the words "three shafts" appear, a
little northward of the footpath from Cavey Spring to Puddledock. Its shaft was
in good preservation and of unusually small diameter, about fifty-three feet of
Thanet Sand covering the chalk, and surface gravel being absent. To the top of
the mound at the base of the shaft the depth from the surface was sixty-four feet,
the depth thence to the floor of the chambers below being on one side about five
feet, on the other about eight feet. The pit was of the ordinary double trefoil
pattern, the chambers on one side of the shaft being much larger than those of the
other. Its greatest length, from the ends of the two primary chambers through
the centre of the shaft, was forty-six feet six inches, from the shaft to the end of
one of these chambers being about thirty feet six inches, the corresponding
measurement on the other side giving only sixteen feet. Measurements at right
angles to the above, to the ends of the lateral chambers, gave as the greatest breadth
forty feet six inches on one side of the shaft, and only twenty-eight feet on the other.
It was noticeable that while the floors of the three smaller clumbers were hori-
zontal to the end, those of the three larger were occupied by a long slope at their
distal ends. At the corner of one of the smaller lateral chambers, about one foot
above the floor, the chalk had been removed from the top of a horizontal flint
band, which had thus been made into a possible seat for two or three persons.
Though deeper than most of the deneholes of this locality, the thickness of
the chalk roof, as shown in the shaft, was between four and five feet.—T. V.
Holmes, F.G.S., September 4th, 1887.