RABBIT 



RABELAIS 



541 



diseases, often fatal, particularly to the young. 

 Dry food, such as corn, ought to be frequently 

 given ; and aromatic herbs, such as parsley, thyme, 

 and milfoil, not only tend to preserve the health 

 of rabbits, but to improve the flavour of their flesh. 

 It is usual to give no water to tame rabbits ; but 

 it is better to supply them regularly with it, and 

 the females need it after producing young. See 

 IxM.ks by Cuniculiw ' (1889), Edwards (2d ed. 

 1887), Knight (1889), Kayson (2d ed. 1889), J. 

 Simpson (1893), and J. E. Harting ( 1898). 



It is believed by many that Spain was the 

 original home of rabbits, and that they were, 

 until comparatively recent times, confined to the 

 Mediterranean region. It is certain that in Spain, 

 and still more in the Balearic Isles, they did tre- 

 mendous havoc in the 1st century B.C. ; still it 

 seems that bones of rabbits have been found in 

 Quaternary deposits north of the Alps. Rabbits 

 spread very rapidly. In some parts of Scotland 

 they were hardly known in the 18th century, 

 though elsewhere they abounded. Their introduc- 

 tion into Ireland is also recent. They are not able 

 to stand great cold, and are therefore alent from 

 .Scandinavia and North Russia. The most signal 

 instance of their rapid distribution is to be found 

 in their present abundance in Australia and New 

 Zealand, into the latter of which countries seven 

 rabbits were first turned out near Invercargill, 

 apparently about 1860. As to Australia, the 

 agent-general for New South Wales writes (1891) 

 that ' this department is unable to state the exact 

 date when rabbit* were introduced into the colony, 

 but it is certain that they existed about forty years 

 ago.' And accord ing to the Victorian YearBouktor 

 1887-88, tame rabbits were kept in Victoria during 

 the early years of the colony (towards the middle 

 of the 19th century ) ; but rabbits were first turned 

 out on an extensive scale by a landed proprietor in 

 the western district. They bred rapidly, and for 

 several years there was a demand for couples for 

 breeding purpose* in most districts, nobody guess- 

 ing what a plague they were to become. In both 

 Australia and New Zealand they have spread and 

 multiplied to an extent which seriously affects the 

 prosperity of fanners and rearers of stock. The 

 climate and soil are suitable and their natural 

 enemies are few. Many endeavours have l>een 

 made to exterminate them, but without success. 

 Trapping, poisoning, and hunting them down pro- 

 duce only a temporary reduction of numbers. 

 Pasteur proposed to infect them with fowl-cholera, 

 and to some extent this has l>een tried. It has 

 been lately suggested that only the females should 

 l>e killed, so that the predominance of males might 

 result in unnatural conditions fatal to continued 

 existence. Most practicable at present is the use 

 of wire netting. Thus, if the pools where the 

 rabbi lx drink are surrounded with netting, thou- 

 sands die of thirst in a short time. In >.< 

 South Wales alone the outlay for rabbit destruc- 

 tion since 1883 has l)een over 1,000,000 ; as manx 

 OH 27,000.000 have been killed in one year, and 

 Ilieir sUiii* \<;<\<\ lor. California and Idaho have 

 also sniffled severely from the rabbit pest. 



Besides eating up crops and pasture, rabbits 

 often do great harm by barking young trees, and 

 also bv their burrowing. On the other hand, the 

 white "flesh of rabbits forms excellent food, the 

 skin and the fur are much used, and, as Gilbert 

 White noticed, rabbits by their nibbling mak< 

 incomparably the finest turf.' The preserving o 

 rabbits in tins is in some places an important 

 industry. Rabbits are not technically game (see 

 GAME-LAWS). The old English name for the 

 rabbit is cony, but the cony of Scripture Ix-longs 

 to the genus Hyrax, anatomically a very difleren 

 animal. See HARE, RODENTS. 



Copjright 1891. 1897, >nd 

 1900 in the U.S. by J. B. 

 Llppiocott Company. 



RABBIT-SKINS have a regular commercial value 

 n consequence of the hair being well adapted for 

 elting purposes ; its chief use is in making the 

 xxlies of felt hats and imitations of several of the 

 more valuable furs. There has been a very large 

 market in the United States for the imitation 

 urs prepared from rabbit-skins, to which country 

 British manufacturers have largely exported. Tas- 

 mania exports about 30,000 rabbit-skins per month 

 to England. See FELT, Funs, HATS. 



Rabelais. FRANCOIS. According to those who 

 wrote while his tomb was still standing with his 

 name and age upon it, who had 

 access to the church register 

 of Meudon, and who visited 

 the place of his birth while his memory yet lin- 

 ;ered, in order to collect every fact that could 

 be found concerning him, this great humorist was 

 born in the year 1483. His father, proprietor of a 

 vineyard called La Deviniere, was an apothecary in 

 the town of Chinon, where his house, which after- 

 wards became a cabaret, is still shown. Francois 

 was the youngest of five sons. Of his elder brothers 

 nothing whatever is known. Bishop Huet, anno- 

 tator of Rabelais, found an old woman of the name 

 in a village near Chinon, and gathered a local tradi- 

 tion that the last male representative of the family, 

 an apothecary, had died at Chinon in great poverty. 

 At the age of nine the boy was sent to the 

 convent of Seuilly, near his father's estate. ' There 

 are some mothers,' he wrote years afterwards, ' who 

 cannot bear to keep their children about the house 

 more than nine, or, still oftener, seven years. By 

 only putting a shirt over their frocks and cutting 

 off a little hair from the crown of their heads, and 

 saying certain magical words, they transpose them 

 into Birds i.e. put them into monasteries and 

 make monks of them.' He was, in fact, made a 

 monk at the age of nine, and remained a monk all 

 the best years of his life. One result was that, 

 when he came out again into the world and begun 

 to write, he wrote of the world as he remembered 

 it of Touraine and the Tourangeaux, the stories 

 and songs of the drinkers, the gossip of the women, 

 the merriment and happiness the wild, the care- 

 less happiness of the whole. 



After some time at Seuilly, the boy was trans- 

 ferred to the convent of La Baumette, near Angers. 

 Here was a school founded by King Ren6 of Anjou 

 in the year 1464, for providing an education on 

 more liberal principles than those of the old method. 

 At this school he founded a life-long friendship 

 with the three illustrious Du Bellay brothers. 

 Nothing is known about the range of his scholar- 

 ship while at La Baumette. We may, however, 

 very well understand, from the continued protec- 

 tion which Jean du Bellay (afterwards Cardinal) 

 extended to him, that as a young man he had 

 shown promise and proved his abilities. At the 

 close of his course he took the sterj for which, no 

 doubt, he had been long prepared i.e. he became 

 a novice of the Franciscan order. It lias been asked 

 why he took a step for which he was eminently 

 unfitted ; why he became a Franciscan, one of the 

 order which professed to despise learning, and why 

 he exchanged his own snulinj' country for the 

 barren heaths of La Vendee. The answer seems 

 obvious : for a poor lad the church offered in some 

 form or other, either as priest, monk, or servant cf 

 the cathedral or monastery, a livelihood that was 

 certain although humble. It is manifest that the 

 youngest son of the Chinon apothecary could not 

 expect a certain livelihood, with the power of con- 

 tinuing his studies, in any other occupation. He 

 became a monk and entered the Franciscan convent 

 of Fontenay le Comte simply because this was the 

 convent where some kindly interest found him a 

 place. It must not be supposed that the monas- 



