Watership Down Hazel's sensitivity to Fiver with the "far more mechanical" attitude of the bucks towards the does portrayed as "little more than passive baby-factories". In the "New York Times Book Review" essay "Male Chauvinist Rabbits", Selma G. Lanes observed that the does are only "instruments of reproduction" to prevent the achievement of reaching "Watership Down" from "becoming a hollow victory". Lanes argued that this view of female rabbits came from Adams rather than his source text, Ronald Lockley's "The Private Life of the Rabbit" in which the rabbit world is matriarchal, and new warrens are initiated by dissatisfied young females. In
The Animals of Farthing Wood (book) once split nature of this first story is the way the book is split into chapters, but also into two parts, 'Escape from Danger', and 'Journey to White Deer Park'. In an interview with the "Green Action" radio programme on Paisley-based station Q96, Dann explained that the two-book version was a special issue for a children's book club operating through British primary schools – it contained some extra illustrations that were left out of the original. It was originally felt that this was the best chance the book had of success due to the resurgence of the novel "Watership Down"