584 THE RABBIT. 
their circumference. These depredations can hardly be checked, as the animal lies quietly 
in its “form” during the daytime, and makes long nocturnal journeys in order to procure 
its food, so that the owner of the garden or field can have no clue to the home of the thief 
which has injured him. 
It is a tolerably prolific animal, beginning to breed when only a year old, and producing 
four or five young at a litter. The young Hares, or “leverets,” as they are technically 
termed, are born with their eyes open, and covered with hair. For the space of four or 
five weeks they remain under the care of their mother, but after that time they separate, 
and depend upon themselves for subsistence. 
THE common Hare is not found in Ireland, but the Irish Hare, Lepus Hibérnicus, is 
extremely common in that country, and takes the place of the common Lepus timidus. 
It may be distinguished from its English relation by its shorter limbs, its round head, and 
short ears, w hich are not so long as ‘the head. According to some writers, the Irish Hare 
is identical with the Alpine Hare, and ought to be ranked with that animal, under the 
title of Lepus variadilis, or Variable Hare, in reference to the annual blanching of its coat 
during the winter months. 
RESEMBLING the hare in general appearance and in many of its habits, the RABBIT is 
readily distinguished from that animal by its smaller dimensions, its different colour, its 
shorter and uniformly brown ears, and its shorter limbs. 
The Rabbit is one of the most familiar of British quadrupeds, having taken firm 
possession of the soil into which it has been imported, and multiplied to so great an 
extent that its numbers ean hardly be kept within proper bounds without annual and 
wholesale massacres. As it is more tameable than the hare, it has long been ranked 
among the chief of domestic pets, and has been so modified by careful management that it 
has developed itself into many permanent varieties, which would be considered as different 
species by one who saw them for the first time. The little brown short-furred wild 
Rabbit of the warren bears hardly less resemblance to the long-haired, silken-furred 
Angola variety, than the Angola to the pure lop-eared variety with its enormously 
lensthened ears and its heavy dewlap. 
‘In its wild state, the Rabbit is an intelligent and amusing creature, full of odd little 
tricks, and given to playing the most ludicrous antics as it cambols about the warren in 
all the unrestrained joyousness of habitual freedom. To see Rabbits at their best it is 
necessary to be closely concealed in their immediate vicinity, and to watch them in the 
early morning or at the fall of evening. No one can form any true conception of the 
Rabbit nature until he has observed the little creatures in their native home; and when 
he has once done so, he will seize the earliest opportuhity of resuming his acquaintance 
with the droll little creatures. 
To describe the manifold antics of a Rabbit warren would occupy the space which 
ought to be devoted to some twenty or thirty animals, and even then would be quite 
inadequate to the proposed task. They are such odd, quaint, ludicrous beings, and are 
full of such comical little coquetries and such absurd airs of assumed dignity, that they 
sorely try the gravity of the concealed observer, and sometimes cause him to burst into 
irrepressible laughter, to their profound dismay. 
At one time they are gravely pattering about the doors of their subterranean homes, 
occasionally sitting upright and gazing in every direction, as if fearful of a surprise, and 
all behaving with the supremest gravity. Next moment, some one gets angry, and 
stamps his feet fiercely on the ground as a preliminary observation before engaging in a 
regular fight. Suddenly a whole party rush off at full speed, scampering over the ground 
as if they meant to run for a mile at least, but unexpectedly stop short at an inviting tuft 
of herbage, and nibble it composedly as if they had not run a yard. Then a sudden panic 
will flash through the whole party, and with a rush and a scurry every rabbit leaps into 
its burrow and vanishes from sight like magic. The spot that was so full of life but a 
moment since is now deserted and silent as if it had been uninhabited for ages ; but in 
a few minutes one little nose is seen cautiously poked out of a burrow, the head and ears 
