Rabbit Watcher
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Rabbit Watcher Author(s): Robin Chapman Source: The Iowa Review, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Winter, 2008/2009), p. 119 Published by: University of Iowa Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20537079 . Accessed: 14/06/2014 14:24 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . University of Iowa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Iowa Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 195.34.79.49 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 14:24:47 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
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Transcript of Rabbit Watcher
Rabbit WatcherAuthor(s): Robin ChapmanSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Winter, 2008/2009), p. 119Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20537079 .
Accessed: 14/06/2014 14:24
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
.
University of Iowa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Iowa Review.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 195.34.79.49 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 14:24:47 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
ROBIN CHAPMAN
Rabbit Watcher
In a Welsh malt-house converted to cabin I'm reading the 1964 classic
by R.M. Lockley, true British eccentric who spent his years up a tree,
spying on rabbits' social networks, their wars over warrens, their digging and tunneling, grazing and cropping, courting and sleeping, breeding and greeting, sunbathing, fighting, marking their corner of island territory. He even describes, Deus ex machina, how he ruined a life to satisfy
curiosity, moving the Head Rabbit out of his green kingdom for three long weeks?time enough for Shakespearean plot to evolve, for the Queen to take up with an upstart Pretender who moved in, sent the old King, returned to the field, into life on the margins of the down,
grazing thistles and scuttling out of the path of former sycophants, his fur matted and ungroomed, his eyes dark and wild. And Lockley? living on a small island overrun by 10,000 rabbits?tries infecting them
with Australian rabbit fever, follows up with Cyanogas in all the warrens
and burrows. Takes up bird-watching, making life lists, identifying gulls.
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This content downloaded from 195.34.79.49 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 14:24:47 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
