180 LEPORID^— ORYCTOLAGUS 



hedgehog, a term applied to non-burrowing rabbits by dealers and 

 fanciers (Blaine, Encyclopedia of Rural Sports, 1875, 88 3) 5 jack-rabbit, a 

 common name for a hare in North America, applied to half-grown 

 specimens in North Lincolnshire {Dial. Diet.) ; jack-sharp of Lancashire 

 (Dial. Diet.) ; map of Banff and Clydesdale {Dial. Diet.), which is also 

 a name for a rabbit-call in Banff, Aberdeen, and Perth {Dial. Diet.) ; 

 mappy {Dial. Diet.) of Northumberland, Galloway, Lothian, Fife, and 

 Aberdeen, from the verb map = to nibble, compare mapsie = s. young 

 hare {Dial. Diet.) ; parker, a term apparently synonymous, or nearly so, 

 with hedgehog (Blaine, op. cit.) ; parson, see clargyman above ; rump, i.e., 

 a young one, of Hereford {Dial. Diet.) ; scut, also written scutt in 

 Nottingham and Sussex, and shut in Kent, West Yorkshire, Northumber- 

 land, and Lakeland, a common word for the tail of a hare or rabbit in 

 Great Britain and Ireland, also occasionally applied to the animal 

 itself, compare " Rabbits flashed here and there with little white scuts 

 twinkling through the gorse" (Phillpotts, Prophets, 1897, 159, in Dial. 

 Diet.) ; hence scutty means short-tailed, and " to show the white rabbit 

 scut " is the same as to " show the white feather " {Dial. Diet.) ; sweet- 

 heart, a tame rabbit (Blaine, op. cit.) ; warrener, a rabbit living in a 

 warren (Blaine, op. cit.), cf. parker, above. 



(Celtic) : — There is no original name, but forms of rabbit or cony 

 are used. Of the latter, the Irish version is coinin ; the Scottish, coinean 

 or conning; the Manx, conning ; the Welsh, ctvning, plural cwninger ; 

 the Cornish, cynin. Variants are numerous. 



Hares and rabbits are said to kindle when they bring forth their 

 young ; compare : — 



"As the cony that you see dwell where she is kindled." 



—Shakespeare, As You Like It, III., ii. 



The word has several variants, as kennel of north country, kinly of 

 West Somerset, kinnle of Durham and east and west Yorkshire, kintle 

 of Durham {Dial. Diet?). It is also applied to cats, although this usage 

 appears to be dying out ; compare " A Kyndyll of yong Cattis " ( The 

 Boke of St Albans, i486), and is evidently a word of some antiquity. 



History: 1 — The Rabbit was not known to the Greeks of classical 

 times, although Xenophon's description, in his Cynegeticus, of a certain 

 small species of hare has sometimes been interpreted as referring to it. 



1 The numerous references included in this section have been collected from 

 a number of papers and works, all of which it would be impossible to mention. 

 The following cannot be omitted : — (1) "The Rabbit (Lefius funiculus) as known to 

 the Ancients," by Houghton, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., March 1869, 279-183; (2) 

 A long paper on the same subject by Brandt, Bitll. de I' Acad. Imp. des Sci. de St 

 Petersbourg, ix. livre 4, 1875, 459-9° > (3) The Wanderings of Plants and Animals, 

 by Hehn, English ed. of Stallybrass, 1885, 343-45, 489-91 ; (4) Gleanings from the 

 Natural History of the Ancients, by Watkins, 1896, 161-162 ; and (5) Die Antike 

 Tierwclt, by Keller, 1909. 



