108 



domestic rabbits: 



Chap. IV. 



1631 Gervaise Markkam writes, " You shall not, as in other 

 cattell, looke to their shape, but to their richnesse, onely elect 

 your buckes, the largest and goodliest conies you can get ; 

 and for the richnesse of the skin, that is accounted the 

 richest which hath the equallest mixture of blacke and white 

 haire together, yet the blacke rather shadowing the white ; the 



furre should be thicke, deepe, smooth, and shining ; 



they are of body much fatter and larger, and, when anothei 

 skin is worth two or three pence, they are worth two shillings." 

 From this full description we see that silver - grey rabbits 

 existed in England at this period ; and what is far more 

 important, we see that the breeding or selection of rabbits was 

 then carefully attended to. Aldrovandi, in 1637, describes, 

 on the authority of several old writers (as Scaliger, in 1557), 

 rabbits of various colours, some " like a hare," and he adds that 

 P. Valerianus (who died a very old man in 1558) saw at 

 Verona rabbits four times bigger than ours. 2 



From the fact of the rabbit having been domesticated at an 

 ancient period, we must look to the northern hemisphere of the 

 Old World, and to the warmer temperate regions alone, for 

 the aboriginal parent-form ; for the rabbit cannot live without 

 protection in countries as cold as Sweden, and, though it has 

 run wild in the tropical island of Jamaica, it has never greatly 

 multiplied there. It now exists, and has long existed, in the 

 warmer temperate parts of Europe, for fossil remains have been 

 found in several countries. 3 The domestic rabbit readily 

 becomes feral in these same countries, and when variously 

 coloured kinds are turned out they generally revert to the 

 ordinary grey colour. 4 Wild rabbits, if taken young, can be 

 domesticated, though the process is generally very trouble- 

 some. 9 The various domestic races are often crossed, and are 



2 U. Aldrovandi, c De Quadrupedi- 

 bus digitatis,' 1637, p. 383. For 

 Confucius and G. Markham, see a 

 writer who has studied the subject, 

 in ' Cottage Gardener,' Jan. 22nd, 

 1861, p. 250. 



3 Owen, ' British Fossil Mammals,' 

 p. 212. 



4 Bechstein, ' Naturgesch. Deutsch- 



lands,' 1801, b. i. p. 1133. I have 

 received similar accounts with respect 

 to England and Scotland. 



5 'Pigeons and Rabbits,' by E. S. 

 Delamer, 1854, p. 133. Sir J. Se- 

 bright ( ' Observations on Instinct,' 

 1836, p. 10) speaks most strongly on 

 the difficulty. But this difficulty is 

 not invariable, as I have received two 



