Mr. A. D. Bartlett on the Black-footed Rabbit. 421 



Himalayan Rabbits, and proposed provisionally to call the species 

 Lepus niffripes*. 



Soon after my paper was published, I received a letter from a gen- 

 tleman at St. Ives, informing me that this kind of rabbit could be 

 produced by crossing the dark wild silvei'-grey rabbit with a breed 

 known as the Chinchilla or light silver-grey. This at the time ap- 

 peared to me strange and unlikely ; nevertheless I determined to 

 make the trial ; and having during the last two or three years pro- 

 duced by these means a large number and fully established the fact, 

 I beg leave to bring them before your notice. 



I have here a light silver-grey male, a dark silver-grey female, and 

 two young of a litter oi five, — two of the number being of the Hima- 

 layan variety, the other three silver-greys ; I have many other ex- 

 amples of the same thing. 



Now, if the white or Himalayan varieties are removed and kept 

 together, the result will be all Himalayan, thus showing a tendency 

 to increase this variety at the expense of the silver-greys, because, 

 although you may remove and destroy all the white specimens, still 

 the silver-greys from which they originated will continue to produce 

 white young ones, while, on the other hand, the white variety never 

 produces silver-greys. 



I mentioned in my former paper that large numbers of the skins 

 of the white variety were imported to Europe annually, and these are 

 probably bred in Asia. 1 now beg leave also to mention that for 

 many years a large trade has l)een carried on by two or three mer- 

 chants, who buy all the skins of the silver-grey rabbits, and export 

 them to Russia and China ; these skins realize a very high price, 

 some of them 3Gs. per dozen, in this country. 



With reference to the origin of the light-coloured silver-grey or 

 Chinchilla rabbit, I am only able to say they came from the Conti- 

 nent to this country, being met with in the South of France and 

 Belgium, but, as far as I am aware, always in a state of domestication. 

 Observing that we receive large quantities of the skins of these white 

 rabbits, and that the skins of the silver-grey rabbits are sold to the 

 Russians and Chinese at a large price, I am led to think it highly 

 probable (from the experiments that I have tried) that at some period 

 the silver-grey rabbit existed in Russia or Asia (and hence the taste 

 or fashion for their skins), and that this breed has been lost and re- 

 placed by the white variety whose skins we now receive in such abun- 

 dance — finding, as I have before remarked, that these have a strong 

 tendency to out-number the greys. 



In conclusion, it is deserving of remark that, in all instances, the 

 young of the silver-greys are quite black for the first five or six 

 weeks, at about this age the grey hairs beginning to make their ap- 

 pearance on the breast and sides ; while the young of the Himalayan 

 or black-footed kind are always perfectly white until they are five or 

 six weeks old, at which time the black hairs begin to appear on their 

 noses, feet, ears, and tails. 



* P. Z. S. 1857, p. 159. 



