What Does “A Trace of Rabbits” Mean?
“Trace” most plausibly connects to old hunting and tracking vocabulary, where a trace referred to the visible trail or evidence, footprints, droppings, flattened grass, left behind by passing game. Rabbits are prolific enough, and their runs through grass and undergrowth distinctive enough, that a well-established rabbit trace, worn paths connecting a warren to favored feeding areas, would have been a genuinely useful thing for a hunter or warrener to read.
We’re presenting this as the most reasonable explanation available rather than a fully confirmed one, since a precise historical source using “trace” specifically as a collective noun for rabbits wasn’t something we could verify with full confidence. What is certain is that rabbits do create real, visible, repeatedly used paths through grass and brush, connecting burrow entrances to grazing spots, worn trails experienced trackers can read almost like a map.
Example: “A well-worn trace of rabbits cut straight across the meadow from the warren to the clover patch.”
Related: Collective Nouns for Mammals · What Is a Group of Rabbits Called?