116 DOMESTIC BABBITS. Chap. IV. 



in its winter dress has a shade of colour on its nose, and the 

 tips of its ears are black : in the L. tibetanus the ears are 

 black, the upper surface of the tail greyish-black, and the 

 soles of the feet brown : in L. glacialis the winter fur is pure 

 white, except the soles of the feet and the points of the ears. 

 Even in the variously- coloured fancy rabbits we may often 

 observe a tendency in these same parts to be more darkly 

 tinted than the rest of the body. Thus the several coloured 

 marks on the Himalayan rabbits, as they grow old, are 

 rendered intelligible. I may add a nearly analogous case : 

 fancy rabbits very often have a white star on their foreheads ; 

 and the common English hare, whilst young, generally has, 

 as I have myself observed, a similar white star on its 

 forehead. 



When variously coloured rabbits are set free in Europe, and 

 are thus placed under their natural conditions, they generally 

 revert to the aboriginal grey colour ; this may be in part due 

 to the tendency in all crossed animals, as lately observed, to 

 revert to their primordial state. But this tendency does not 

 always prevail ; thus silver-grey rabbits are kept in warrens, 

 and remain true though living almost in a state of nature ; 

 but a warren must not be stocked with both silver-greys and 

 common rabbits ; otherwise "in a few years there will be 

 none but common greys surviving." 20 When rabbits run 

 wild in foreign countries under new conditions of life, they 

 by no means always revert to their aboriginal colour. In 

 Jamaica the feral rabbits are described as having been " slate- 

 coloured, deeply tinted with sprinklings of white on the neck, 

 on the shoulders, and on the back ; softening off to blue- white 

 under the breast and belly." 21 But in this tropical island 

 the conditions were not favourable to their increase, and they 

 never spread widely, and are now extinct, as I hear from Mr. 

 R. Hill, owing to a great fire which occurred in the woods. 

 Babbits during many years have run wild in the Falkland 



20 Delamer on 'Pigeons and Rabbits,' have become feral in a hot. country. 

 P- 114. They can be kept, however, at Loanda 



21 Gosse's " ' Sojourn in Jamaica,' {see Livingstone's ' Travels,' p. 407). 

 1851, p. 441, as described by an ex- In parts of India, as I am informed by 

 cellent observer, Mr. R. Hill. This is Mr. Blyth, they breed well. 



the only known case in which rabbits 



