THE RABBIT OR CONY 183 



could only have been used for catching these rodents, and it is known 

 that their use dates back to very early times. 



It was not long before the value of rabbits for food so appealed to 

 the Romans that they began to import them to Italy, where they 

 appear to have gained a footing at least by A.D. 230, about which time 

 they were observed numerously by Athenaeus on an island (evidently 

 Nisida or Nisita), near Dichaearchia or Puteoli, now Pozzuoli, itself near 

 Naples {Deiphnosophistcz, Bk. ix., c. 63, Yonge's translation in Bohn 

 Library, ii., 631-632). In A.D. 303 the maximum prices for rabbits 

 and hares were fixed by the edict of Diocletian at 40 and 150 denarii 

 respectively. The former were considered a great delicacy, and in later 

 times it was the fashion to eat the embryos, under the name of " laurices " 

 (" laurex " being apparently a Balearic word signifying a fcetal rabbit) 

 during times of fast (see Gregory of Tours, quoted below). 



From the above quotations it is certain that the Rabbit, as first known 

 to history, was an abundant animal in the Iberian Peninsula, and that its 

 range extended to the south of France as far as Marseilles, with Corsica 

 and the Balearic Islands. Thence it was introduced to Italy before A.D. 230. 

 That it was indigenous to the Iberian Peninsula is shown by many other 

 facts, and it is not mentioned in early historical times as inhabiting any 

 other region, but the following facts suggest that it may have also existed 

 in central France, although without the knowledge of early writers. 



Since there are no names for the animal in any central European 

 language other than those derived from the Latin cuniculus, it cannot 

 have been indigenous outside the above limits. But there is no 

 information either as to exactly when or how it spread north from 

 its original habitat ; nor as to whether its coming was natural or 

 artificial, and, if the latter, whether it was first introduced as a wild or 

 tame animal. Reinach {Antiguite's Nationales — Description raisonnee du 

 Musee de St Germain, ii., 301) has reproduced some third-century draw- 

 ings of rabbits from central and southern France ; and Gregory of Tours 

 (ad. 540-594; see Histories Francorum, lib. v., iv.), writing of his contem- 

 porary Roccolenus, records the fact that in times of fasting he frequently 

 ate unborn rabbits at or near Poitiers. On the other hand, Petrus 

 Crescentius, an inhabitant of Bologna, Italy, about A.D. 1 265-1 321, 

 who clearly defined the geographical distribution of the animal in his 

 days, stating {Opus ruralium Commodorum, lib. ix., c. 80) that rabbits 

 inhabited Spain, Provence, and the neighbouring parts of Lombardy, 

 omitted all mention of central France. This is remarkable, since 

 these rodents must also have been known at least as far north as 

 central France before the thirteenth century ; as apart from the 

 fact that they had been already introduced into Britain (see below, 

 p. 186), they are familiarly described in the northern or central French 

 original of Chaucer's Romaunt of the Rose (see p. 196). The incon- 



