Rabbit is in last stages of the '˜myxi' disease

She hangs lifeless in the maw of my youngest dog, and as I take the limp body, I feel every bone through the matted hide, for this rabbit was in the last stages of the disease, eyes filled with pus, ugly red bubons behind her ears and between her back legs, and probably with pneumonia as well.

The pup is pleased with her catch, knowing nothing of the regret a human feels over a noble adversary cut down by disease.

Can a rabbit be noble? For sure, they are deserving of our respect. They are canny, fast, agile, and very good at being rabbits.

While healthy, they make a testing quarry, and finally, they make a meal.

Not this one, though. I shall leave it for the fox, if I can only pick a time when the young dog is not looking, for she won’t be so eager to bring me her catch next time if she thinks I will throw it away.

This is the last rabbit from the wooded area, but there should be some left in the uncultivated land further on, once we have crossed the field with the self-sown oilseed rape flowering jaunty yellow at us.

I was ferreting miles from here last week, and found myxomatosed rabbits, and again the week before, in a different area of Sussex.

I don’t know why I had hoped the “myxie” would leave them alone this year: after all, it never has done since it started way back in the early fifties.

There is little good about it except that it saves a lot of rabbits from going through the winter and possibly starving, and it makes easy catches for dogs, so giving them the confidence to go after healthy rabbits.

A healthy rabbit is a far more difficult beast to catch, and it takes a good dog to pick up consistent numbers in this area.

While I am thinking about all this, the old dog whirls and snaps at a passing coney, missing it by a hairsbreadth. That was a healthy one, then! Both eyes were clear, bright and wide open as it scudded past me, to live another day.

The old dog has failing eyesight, is almost deaf, and very frail, but he enjoys his trips out, and his sense of smell, that we call “nose” in the hunting world, is as good as it ever was.

He nuzzles the tussocks from whence the rabbit had appeared, drinking in the scent, and then turns his head to grin his old fangs at me, waving his tail, a glint still in his eyes that were once as clear as amber.

We reach the end of the stubble-field and start our walk down through the rough, the old dog at my heels and the younger two scouting ahead.

I have disposed of the scrawny rabbit now; it will make food for something but not for us.

By the time I am back on the path again, I have one dog missing. She is at that age now, testing her boundaries, and I must be patient for it will all come right in the end.

I whistle once, and walk on, the other two making much of the fact that they are good dogs and still with me.

I have my mind on the miscreant, and am a little anxious by the time the track curves for home, but I need not have worried.

She arrives in a swirl of scattered earth and whirling tail, soaking wet from having been in the pond, and carrying another rabbit.

This one, though dead, is fat and free from disease, so it looks as if rabbit casserole will be dish of the day tomorrow.