GNAWING ANIMALS — RODENTS 171 



Lis who have kept both hares and rabbits in captivity 

 say the hare is a gentleman and the rabbit is a cad. 

 Hare skins are used in the manufacture of felt, while 

 a large number of skins of the mountain hare come 

 over from Siberia and are used in the manufacture 

 of various furs. 



The hare is coursed with greyhounds, shot and 

 hunted with harriers. 



Martial has provided an excellent motto for hare 

 hunters, as he sj^eaks of it as ''Liter quadriqwdes 

 gloria prima lepus.'^ 



The Guinea-Pjg. 



Of all the foreign rodents with which we are 

 familiar the guinea-pig is the best known. It has 

 been kept as a domestic pet so long in this country 

 that many fancy breeds have become established. 

 The name of this animal is curiously inappropriate, 

 since it is neither a pig nor does it come from Guinea. 

 The original stock from which the domesticated 

 breeds are derived is the restless cavy of South 

 America, and the name is a corruption probably of 

 Guiana pig. Like the rest of the cavies our guinea- 

 pig has five toes on the fore and hind feet. 



Other rodents which are more or less familiar 

 through reading of them in books and seeing them 

 in menageries are — the prairie dogs or prairie mar- 

 mots of North America and the alpine marmot ; the 

 flying squirrels of Asia; the little squirrel-like 

 chinchilla from the heights of the Andes, and the 

 porcupine. 



