Nutkins

I found this poor little critter when wandering this aft.   He (let's assume)  wasn't well.  Very not well.  He didn't move when approached and not even when touched.  His eyes seemed bright and attentive though. 

Almost exactly 40 years ago we were out of a field-trip from school and we came across a a very ill rabbit.  Our teacher told us all to look away.  I turned my body but watched over my shoulder as Mr McBeth produced a Bowie knife, took the rabbit by the ears and dispatched it with a swift blow to the back of it's head with back of the knife. 
It was a rabbit with myxomatosis and any time after that, when I saw a rabbit in such a state, I dispatched it in a similar way.  For that is what my teacher taught me.  I really don't recall how many I sent on their way. But each one was done with a heavy heart and the honest belief that it was the right thing to do. 

One in particular sticks in my mind for a strange reason.  It was many years later and I was living far from the rural idyll I was brought up in.  I was walking in the local hills and found a rabbit with myxomatosis. It had been a long time since the last encounter and I was a bit hesitant.  I didn't have my Bowie knife (city police frown upon such things normal for us country folk!) so found a suitable sized stone for the dispatching. 
But as I laid my hand on the rabbit it took off at full speed.  Being blinded by the disease, it could only bound hopefully away from it's predator. 
With stone (about the size of an apple) in hand I watched it bound across the heather. I drew my arm back and waited for my chance. 
I fired.   
I caught it right on the head at about 40 feet away.   I ran to it in case I had to finish the job but it was stone dead.
I was very pleased with my stone throwing ability.  I was cave-man! 

In the intervening years I heard that rabbits were surviving myxomatosis so left any sufferers that I found to take their chance.

But I'd never met an ill squirrel before.  I did consider dispatching it but just didn't have the heart to do it.   I walked away a little to see if he'd move when he didn't have eyes on him and found he'd moved about two feet.  OK, I thought, there's a bit of fight still in him.  I found some dry leaves under a nearby tree and put a bunch on top of him.  He seemed to try to move under the pile - maybe recognising that this was some protection or shelter - maybe like his dray.  I did this a few more times so he was under a good insulating pile. 
I'm not working tomorrow so may pop along so see...