Farmyard Fridays could not resist the opportunity to tie a fact into recent events surrounding the election of a new Pope. Given that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio has chosen to become Francis I after Francis of Assisi, it seems only fair that this week’s offering in some way references the patron saint of animals. Additionally, it’s almost Easter and I like MaltEaster bunnies, so this is kind of a tribute to them as well.
A famous story about Francis of Assisi explains how he released a rabbit which had been caught in a trap. Having advised it to be more careful in future, he let the animal go – only for it to turn around and come back to him. Even when Francis took the rabbit into the woods, it clung to him and wanted to stay with him. Only when a fellow friar took the rabbit far into the woods did the rabbit understand that it was to live in the wild instead. This is one instance cited as to how animals loved Francis of Assisi, the implication being that the rabbit felt safe with him and was scared to leave.
Which is only understandable when you learn a little about
rabbits as they have a lot to be scared of. Reading a list of natural predators
of rabbits is a bit like reading a who’s who of the animal kingdom. It seems
wherever rabbits are, they have a whole host of enemies just waiting for some
rabbit stew. To name just a few of poor Bugs’ worst nightmares, you have cats,
dogs, lions, lynx, mountain lions, bobcats, tigers wolves, foxes, coyotes,
hawks, eagles, falcons, kestrels, stoats, mink, ferrets, wolverines, badgers,
bears, racoons and snakes. And that’s without mentioning humans at all. So it’s
no real wonder that the rabbit seemed to prefer staying with Francis than
chancing his luck in the big wide world.
There is another level of fear for the rabbit
though. Those of a certain age will remember the children’s television show The
Animals of Farthing Wood, and how Rabbit had a set of neuroses which would keep
a psychiatrist busy for a very long time. Whenever he was faced with anything
slightly scary, he’d faint and need to be brought around by his long-suffering
wife. I always assumed this was a little quirk introduced by the writers in
order to differentiate between the many small burrowing creatures on the
programme.
But on further investigation it appears that, for
all the masochistic tendencies of those writers, this was actually a rare case
of them sparing small children a terrible teatime nightmare. For if they had
been biologically accurate, Rabbit would never have woken up from his fits of
unconsciousness. Rabbits can actually be scared to death. This is probably no
surprise to many still suffering the scars of their beloved childhood bunny
dropping dead for seemingly no reason, but it also seems quite a design flaw in
the animal itself; you’d think evolution would have removed those particular
genes from the pool long ago.
Still, from my viewpoint, I’m glad Darwin’s theory
doesn’t seem to have held true on this occasion, because rabbits are cute.
However, their being cute is not this week’s Farmyard Friday fact.
Farmyard Friday Fact #6: Rabbits can be literally
scared to death.
On a more cheerful note, look at these cute
pictures.
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