Watership Down novelist Richard Adams dies at 95

Both animated adaptations were made by Nepenthe Films of the United Kingdom, and are distributed in the United States by Warner Home Video. If you can, try to get the earlier printings of Watership Down, which retains some extra passages and footnotes on rabbit psychology: the why they do what do.

I read "Watership Down" in high school 40 years ago, and I don't remember seeing the part about rabbit psychology. However, there was a glossary of the words of the rabbit language.

The early printing that I remember had "tharn" as a state of panic that renders a rabbit unable to move, frozen with fear. Hazel was routinely worried that a hazard in the rabbits' journey would cause this, which would make them unmanageable. There was also mention that rabbits can count to four; any number greater than four is "hrair," which translates to "many" or "thousand." There was also mention that male rabbits don't like to dig, and will usually make only "scrapes" in the earth, where they hunker down and mimic a patch of bare ground while keeping a lookout. It's the females that tunnel like machines, digging the burrows where they can birth litters in relative safety. It's also males that tend to become "hlessil," wandering nomads that aren't part of a warren. This is often the case with smaller males that aren't up to fighting to secure a mate, so these become hobo bachelors. And, of course, a rabbit that senses the end of its days will wander afield to die alone, so as not to distress the other rabbits.

It impressed me that Adams was so meticulous in his world-building and character psychology to make his story more than tiny furry people journey to Oz.