From Boon (1915) by H. G. Wells:
If a thing is sufficiently strange and great no one will perceive it. Men will go on in their own ways though one rose from the dead to tell them that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, though the Kingdom itself and all its glory became visible, blinding their eyes. They and their ways are one. Men will go on in their ways as rabbits will go on feeding in their hutches within a hundred yards of a battery of artillery. For rabbits are rabbits, and made to eat and breed, and men are human beings and creatures of habit and custom and prejudice; and what has made them, what will judge them, what will destroy them – they may turn their eyes to it at times as the rabbits will glance at the concussion of the guns, but it will never draw them away from eating their lettuce and sniffing after their does . . .
A sad (but true) indictment of humanity.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is. And I had completely forgotten that female rabbits were called does.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I thought does were deers, as in ‘doe a deer, a female deer’.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Apparently doe covers deer, rabbits, kangaroos, goats, and various other mammals. Female rabbits are also sometimes called jills. Young rabbits are called kits/kittens (same as for foxes). A rabbit giving birth is called kindling. I didn’t know that last one.
LikeLiked by 2 people
How silly is that!? Kittens are little cats, little foxes should be foxlets and little rabbits should be hoppits.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I actually knew that about baby foxes being called kits. One thing I read, which I think is true, is that foxes are actually closer related to cats than they are to dogs. I thought that was neat. And like rabbits they live in burrows, so . . .
LikeLiked by 2 people
Foxes are definitely in the canine group along with wolves. I suppose their offspring should be called pups!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yep, I was wrong on that one. Can’t remember where I heard that but it was a while ago.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Can we trust the writer who came up with this?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079894/
LikeLike
‘Twas a prescient novel. I haven’t seen that adaptation. But if it has Jack Palance how bad can it be?
LikeLiked by 1 person