Welsh rarebit considered to be a supper or tavern dish, based on the fine cheddar-type cheeses and the wheat bread [...] . Surprisingly, it seems there was not only a Welsh Rabbit, but also an English Rabbit, an Irish and a Scotch Rabbit, but nary a rarebit." Michael Quinion writes: "Welsh rabbit is basically cheese on toast (the word is not 'rarebit' by the way, that's the result of false etymology; 'rabbit' is here being used in the same way as 'turtle' in 'mock-turtle soup', which has never been near a turtle, or 'duck' in 'Bombay duck', which was actually a dried
The Year of the Angry Rabbit dropped the humor of the book. Sir Alfred – who engineered Fitzgerald's election to prime minister – calls Fitzgerald one evening with a complaint: his Bludgerton property has been infested with rabbits that are immune to myxomatosis. Fearing another rabbit epidemic, Fitzgerald tasks Professor Welch and his scientists with inventing super myxomatosis, or Supermyx, to control the growing rabbit population. They test the first batch of Supermyx on a male and female rabbit, with disastrous results: Supermyx does not kill rabbits, and merely makes them savage, as if infected with rabies. Supermyx is, however, instantly lethal to humans, as demonstrated