THE RABBIT 



of rabbits, under favorable circumstances, would in three years have a progeny 

 numbering 13,718,000. The inhabitants of the colony soon found that the rabbits 

 were a plague, for they devoured the grass, which was needed for the sheep, the 

 bark of trees, and every kind of fruit and vegetables, until the prospect of the colony 

 became a very serious matter, and ruin seemed inevitable. In New South Wales 

 upward of fifteen million rabbit skins have been exported in a single year; while in 

 the thirteen years ending with 1889 no less than thirty-nine millions were accounted 

 for in Victoria alone. To prevent the increase of these Rodents, the introduction of 

 weasels, stoats, mungooses, etc., has been tried; but it has been found that these 

 Carnivores neglected the rabbits and took to feeding on poultry, and thus became 

 as great a nuisance as the animals they were intended to destroy. The attempt to 

 kill them off by the introduction of an epidemic disease has also failed. In order to 

 protect such portions of the country as are still free from rabbits, fences of wire 

 netting have been erected; one of these fences erected by the Government of Vic- 

 toria extending for a distance of upward of one hundred and fifty geographical 

 miles. In New Zealand, where the rabbit has been introduced little more than 

 twenty years, its increase has been so enormous, and the destruction it inflicts so 

 great, that in some districts it has actually been a question whether the colonists 

 should not vacate the country rather than attempt to fight against the plague. 

 The average number of rabbit skins exported from New Zealand is now twelve 

 millions. 



Tame rabbits were introduced into the island of Porto Santo, near 

 . Madeira, in the year 1418 or 1419, and their descendants have now 



formed a breed distinguished by their small size, the reddish color of 

 the fur of the upper parts, and the gray tints of that below. So different, indeed, 

 are these rabbits from the ordinary kind, that the two kinds will not even breed 

 together; and if the history of the Porto Santo race were not known, it would un- 

 doubtedly be regarded as a distinct species. Tame rabbits which have run wild in 

 Jamaica and the Falkland islands have not reverted to the ordinary wild form, but 

 still exhibit distinct traces of their origin. 

 Introduced rabbits are also numerous in 

 Teneriffe and the Crozet islands. In 

 Teneriffe, where the breed is small, they 

 do not burrow, but live in crannies among 

 the rocks. 



The rabbit has long been 



kept in a domesticated state, 



in which it varies not only in 

 color but likewise in size, in the length of 

 the fur, in the form and direction of the 

 ears, and also to some extent in the con- 

 formation of the skull. The usual colors 

 are brown, faw r n, reddish brown, or black, 



more or less mingled with white; and there is also an albino race with pink 

 eyes. 



Domesticated 

 Rabbits 



LOP-EARED RABBIT. 



