256 MAMMALIA— RABBIT. 



THE RABBIT. » 



Though the hare and the rabbit are, externally as well as internally, very 

 much alike, yet they form two distinct and separate species. 



The fecundity of the rabbit is even greater than that of the hare ; and, 

 without crediting what Wotton has advanced, that one pair only, being left 

 together in an island, produced six thousand in one year, it is certain, that 

 these creatures multiply so prodigiously in countries which are proper for 

 the breed, that the earth cannot furnish them with subsistence : they destroy 

 herbs, roots, grain, fruit, and even trees and shrubs ; and, were it not for 

 the use made in Europe of the dog and the ferret, they would reduce the 

 country to a desert. In the reign of Augustus, they became such a nuisance 

 to the Balearic Islands, that the inhabitants were under the necessity of 

 petitioning the emperor to send a military force to destroy them. The rab- 

 bit not only engenders and produces oftener than the hare, but it has more 

 ways to escape from its enemies, and to avoid the sight of man. 



This circumstance alone may suffice to prove that the rabbit is superior 

 to the hare in point of sagacity. Both are alike in their conformation, and 

 both have it in their power to dig retreats for themselves. Both are timid 

 to an excess ; but the one, possessed of less art, is contented with forming 

 a residence on the surface of the earth, where it remains continually expos- 

 ed ; while the other, by a more improved instinct, takes the trouble to dig 

 into the earth, and there to make itself an asylum ; and so true is it, that 

 they act in this case from a kind of reason or reflection, that we never see 

 the domestic rabbit employed in the same work. Rabbits give the alarm to 

 each other by thumping on the ground with one of their hind feet, which 

 may be heard to a considerable distance. 



The domestic rabbits, like all other animals, vary in their color ; white, 

 black, and gray, belong properly to nature. The black rabbits are the 

 most scarce. 



These animals are able to engender and produce at the age of five or six 

 months. It is asserted, that they commonly attach themselves to one 

 particular female, and never quit her. She goes with young thirty 01 



Lepus cuniculus, Lin. 



