196 LEPORID^E— ORYCTOLAGUS 



thicker coat, so that their skins are more valuable. In December and 

 January the fur is in fine condition, and I suspect that it undergoes a 

 gradual change throughout the winter. The new hairs, when first 

 appearing, are very similar to those of the old coat, and not con- 

 spicuously different, as in the Brown Hare. There is also a spring 

 moult as in the hares ; it may not be completed until 7th July (specimen 

 examined at Kilmanock, Co. Wexford), but I have noticed it also on 

 25th May. 



The young, by the time they leave the nest, are, except in size, very 

 similar to the adults, but the underfur being more prominent, the hairs 

 less so, they have a woolly appearance. They are usually without the 

 extra long hairs until about the age of two months (Hurst, op. cit., 300), 

 between which time and the third the juvenal coat is shed (Harting, The 

 Rabbit, 8, footnote). I have examined one in process of moulting on 

 13th January 191 1. White hairs, sometimes forming a definite patch 

 or spot, are frequently found on the forehead. 



There are six mammae arranged in three pairs, a pair pectoral and 

 two pairs abdominal. [Note, however, that Darwin, Variation of 

 Animals and Plants under Domestication, 1868, i., 106, writes: "The 

 common wild rabbit always has ten mammae."] 



For age and sex characters, see above, under Leporidce (pp. 163- 

 165). The blunt heads of the bucks (see Plates XII. and XIII.) are 

 usually unmistakable as compared with the long lean heads of the does. 

 Although widely known, I do not find this fact recorded except in 

 Blaine's Encyclopedia of Rural Sports, new ed., 1875, 510. 



Numerous colour variations occur, and have been long known. 

 They must have been familiar in the sixteenth century according to 

 Gesner (see above, p. 184) ; Merrett described two as " griseus argenteus " 

 and " niger " in 1666 ; and about the same date (1675) black rabbits were 

 noticed on an island off Ireland ( Westropp, Proc. Roy. Irish. Acad., " Clare 

 Island Survey," pt. 2, Dec. 1911,75). A passage from Chaucer's Romaunt 

 of the Rose was quoted by Rolleston {pp. cit. supra, p. 193), and would at 

 first sight seem to point to varieties having been familiar objects in the 

 fourteenth century. It runs as follows in Bell's edition of 1855, vii., 60 : — 



Conies there were also playing, 

 That comen out of her claperes 

 Of sundry coloures and maneres, 

 And maden many a turneiying 

 Upon the freshe gras spryngyng. 



Skeat has, however, most obligingly informed me that the above 

 lines, although undoubtedly written by Chaucer, are a translation from 

 an older poem, Roman de la Rose, written about 1260- 1270 by the 

 trouveres of northern or central France (see Skeat's " The Student's 

 Chaucer"). According to a quite common custom of Chaucer's, 



