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[Preliminary note: The noun Scouse designates the dialect of English spoken in Liverpool, a port-city in Merseyside—historically in Lancashire, a county of northwestern England, on the Irish Sea.]

Chiefly found in glossarial contexts, the humorous Scouse noun jigger-rabbit designates an alley-cat.

This noun occurs, for example, in a letter to the Editor, by one John G. Moorhead, of Gorstage, Cheshire, published in The Guardian (London and Manchester, England) of Monday 13^th June 2016 [page 26, column 1]:

My grandma and my dad assure me and my siblings that in the darkest days of the 1920s, jigger rabbit stew saved many a Liverpool family from starvation.

Of unknown origin, the Scouse noun jigger designates a narrow passageway between the backs of urban terrace-houses. This noun was recorded as follows in The English Dialect Dictionary (Oxford: Henry Frowde, 1905), edited by the English philologist Joseph Wright (1855-1930) [volume 3: H–L, page 364, column 1]—Lan. stands for Lancashire, and S. K. C. are the initials of S. K. Craven, the name of a correspondent who lived in Bradford, Yorkshire:

JIGGER, Lan. [Not known to our other correspondents.] An entry; a narrow passage between houses. (S. K. C.)

In jigger-rabbit, the second element is humorously substituted for the noun cat. Therefore, jigger-rabbit is comparable to nouns such as Bombay duck, designating the bummalo fish, and underground mutton, designating rabbit meat.

These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the noun jigger-rabbit that I have found:

1-: From A Plea for Mersey: Or, The Gentle Art of Insinuendo (Liverpool: Gallery Press, 1966), by Peter Moloney—as quoted in a review of that book, by Ian Easthope, published in the Shropshire Star (Telford, Shropshire, England) of Friday 20^th January 1967 [page 6, column 3]:

Being a schoolmaster, Peter Moloney sits on a treasure trove of Scouse wit.
He describes the time when he asked three boys why they had been absent.
“I was leggin after a jigger rabbit up de enog, when a was wellied wid batties ev alfchockers,” was the boy’s reply.
“I accepted the excuse, of course. If you have ever been struck by a large number of half-bricks while chasing a pussy cat up a side alleyway, you would know how painful it can be,” is Moloney’s summary.

2-: From a review of Lern Yerself Scouse: How to Talk Proper in Liverpool (Liverpool: Scouse Press, 1966), by Stan Kelly, Frank Shaw and Fritz Spiegl—review published in the Fort Lauderdale News (Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA) of Thursday 4^th May 1967 [page 10C, column 2]:

LIVERPOOL, England. (Reuters)—Would you call a scuffer if you saw a tatty-ead chucking alley apples at a jigger rabbit?
If you’re an animal lover, you probably would.
Because a scuffer would be a Liverpool policeman to stop a young woman (tatty-ead) from throwing stones (alley apples) at a poor alley cat (jigger rabbit).

3-: From The Whitbread Book of Scouseology (Liverpool: Brunswick Printing and Publishing Co. Ltd., 1986), by Phil Young and Jim Bellew [page 55, column 1]:

JIGGER
Liverpool expression for back entry or alleyway. Expressions include “Jigger Rabbit”—a moggie (cat).

4-: From the following advertisement, published in The Harrow & Northwood Informer (London, England) of Thursday 13^th March 1986 [page 12, columns 2 & 3]:

Jigger Rabbits
We are pleased to announce the opening of
JIGGER RABBITS
A hair salon with a difference, aimed at young people up to 18 or still at college
—LIMITED BUDGET—
NO MORE WORRIES
CUT AND BLOW DRY
£6.00 No Frills
FREE COMPETITION
What is a Jigger Rabbit
Do you know the Habbits of the Jigger Rabbits?
Where do they hide?
And what they abide
The first 5 correct entries can have a day at our Jigger Rabbits Hair Salon as our guests
A HAIR CUT AND TREATMENT FREE!
Just write down on a piece of paper with your name and address on it in not more than 25 words
A Jigger Rabbit is …………. and send it to:
The Workshop, 2 Bishops Walk, Pinner.
Tel: 01-429 1262

5-: From the column Native Guide to Duke’s Terrace, by David Hall, published in the Daily Post (Liverpool, Merseyside, England) of Saturday 9^th December 1989 [page 21, column 1]:

I went down Seel Street past Dr Duncan’s public house and into what is known locally as a ‘jigger’. Not a ‘jigger rabbit’ to be seen but some creature did scuttle away in the piles of rubbish and debris. I scuttled away rapidly in the opposite direction, feeling urgently in need of Dr Duncan’s ministrations!