500 



Home Nature- Study Course. 



LESSON LXI. 



THE VARIETIES OE DOMESTICATED RABBITS AND HARES. 



Purpose. — To interest the pupils in the growing of the domesticated 

 varieties and in learning how to give them proper protection, food 

 and care. 



Photo, by Verne Morton. 



Common domesticated rabbit and vouu". 



Belgian Hare, fawn to red-brown in color, medium size, long and graceful ; 

 bred for the market. Common Rabbit, which may be white (albino), black, maltese, 

 or with broken colors. Angora, white or broken colored; a small to medium 

 (breed, with short ears and silky hair; a purely fancy breed. Lop-cared, fawn to 

 brown in color ; very large ears which droop ; a fancy breed ; very tender, requiring 

 artificial heat in winter. Himmalayan, a small to medium breed ; white with black 

 ears, nose and feet ; short hair, alert and active ; a very fancy breed. Flemish 

 Giant, very large, weighing fourteen to eighteen pounds each ; fawn to brown in 

 color; seldom raised. 



Mr. E. W. Cleeves informs us that he had a Belgian doe which showed her 

 enmity to cats in a most interesting and peculiar way. She would run after any 

 cats that came in sight, butting them like a billy goat. The cats soon learned 

 this foe and would climb a tree as soon as the hare appeared in the vicinity. 

 This hare made a burrow about three feet long, not directly into the earth but 

 parallel with the surface. When she left her little ones she always closed the 

 burrow by making a false bottom of earth, so that any creature coming along 

 would think it had reached the end when really the compartment for the young 

 rabbits was safe beyond. This doe was the mother of 63 young ones in eight 

 months. 



