218 NATURAL HISTORY. 



has more ways to escape from its enemies, and to coi: 

 ceal itself from man. 



This circumstance alone may suffice to prove, that 

 the rabbit is superior to the hare in point of sagacity. 

 Both are alike in their conformation, arid both have 

 it ia their power to dig retreats for themselves. Botli 

 are timid to an excess ; but the one, possessed of less 

 art, is contented with forming for itself a residence on 

 the surface of the earth, where it remains continually 

 exposed. While the other, by a more improved 

 instinct, takes the trouble to dig into the earth for an 

 asylum ; and so true is it, but as in this case they act 

 from sentiment, we never see the domestic rabbit em- 

 ployed in the same work. 



The domestic rabbits, h'ke all other domestic ani- 

 mals, vary in their colour : white, black, and grey be- 

 long properly to Nature. The black rabbits are the 

 most scarce. 



These animals are able to engender and produce 

 at the age of five or six months. It is asserted, that 

 they commonly attach themselves to one particular 

 female, and never quit her. She goes with young 

 thirty or thirty-one days, and will produce five, six, 

 and sometimes seven or eight at a birth. Like the 

 doe-hare, she has a double matrix, and of consequence 

 can have in her womb, at the same time, two sepa- 

 rate litters. It appears, however, that super-foetations 

 are less frequent in this species than in that of the hare. 



A few days before they bring forth, the/ dig them- 

 selves a fresh burrow, not in a right line, but in a 

 crooked direction, at the bottom of which they make 

 an excavation. After this they tear a quantity of hair 

 from their bellies, and make a kind of bed for the use 

 of their young. For the first two days they ni'ver- 



