370 MONOGRAPHS OF NORTII AMENICAN RODENTIA. 



Lepus cuniculus, and, as Waterbouse observes, is from the Dutch Robbeken. 

 Tlie species was also often anciently called Cony in England, and is generally 

 known by some analogous word in oilier European countries, the Italians 

 calling it Coniglio; the Spaniards, Conejo; the Welch, Cwningen; the Danes 

 and Swedes, leaning, etc., all traceable, as etymologists tell us, to the Latin 

 word cuniculus. Rabbit is as distinctively a specific name as is its Latin 

 equivalent cuniculus in scientific nomenclature, or as Robin is in America for 

 the designation of a particular kind of Thrush. Hence Rabbit is properly 

 applicable to the Lepus cuniculus, and to no other species of the Hare family. 



Hare, on the contrary, is as much a generic or family name as is either 

 Mouse, Squirrel, Bat, Hawk, or Thrush, and may be properly applied to any 

 species of the family. In England, when used without a qualifying word, 

 it refers to the "Common Hare", or Lepus ewopaus (— limidus of authors 

 generally), and its unmodified equivalent is similarly used in other Euro- 

 pean countries. The analogues of Hare, as Hens of the Dutch, Hase of 

 the Germans, Hare of the Danes and Swedes, etc., are also similarly 

 used for the designation of any species of the Hare family, to which are 

 added qualifying words to indicate particular species, as in English we speak 

 of the Varying Hare, the Polar Hare, the Mediterranean or Sardinian Hare, 

 Prairie Hare, etc.* 



It hence follows that, strictly speaking, the term Rabbit is not applicable 

 to any species of American Hare; the term Hare, with some qualifying word, 

 as Marsh Hare, Californian Hare, etc., being technically the only admissible 

 appellative lor our indigenous species. Practically, however, the terms 

 Hare and Rabbit in this country have become interchangeable, either desig- 

 nation being used for any of the species according to individual predilection, 

 though generally, perhaps, there is a tendency to restrict the name Hare to 

 the larger species. Hence the terms Rabbit and Hare have, in the United 

 States at least, ceased to become distinctive of any specific diversity or peculi- 

 arities of habit, or structure. The Rabbit proper, or the Lepus cuniculus, differs 

 from most other species of the family in its habit of burrowing, and from 

 most of the other Old World species in the shortness of its hind legs. Many 

 of our American species, however, resort more or less habitually to the 

 deserted burrows of other animals for protection, either from their enemies 



" Waterhonse, in his excellent work mi the liodentia, scrupulously applies the term Hare to every 

 species of tin; Han; family, except L. cuvicti lus, which lit; calls 'the Rabbit or Cony ", the latter uamo 

 being the one anciently in general use tor this species. 



