184 THE CHINCHILLA. 



its burrow ; but there are some animals, such as the stoat, weasel, and 

 ferret, which follow it into its subterranean abode and slay it within the 

 precincts of its own home. 



When the female Rabbit is about to become a mother, she quits the 

 ordinary burrows, and digs a special tunnel for the purpose of shelter- 

 ing her young family 



" "^ '^^ ^ bodA^, so as to make a 



Babbits (i.pus c^m,Wu«). g^ft and warm bed 



for the expected occupants. The young Rabbits are about seven or 

 eight in number, and are born without hair and with their eyes closed. 

 Not until they have attained the age of ten or twelve days are they 

 able to open their eyelids and to see the world into which tliey have 

 been brought. 



Rabbits are terribly destructive animals, as is too well known to all 

 residents near a warren, and are sad depredators in field, garden, and 

 plantation, destroying in very wantonness hundreds of plants which 

 they do not care to eat. They do very great damage to young trees, 

 delighting in stripping them of the tender bark as far as they can reach 

 while standing on their hind-feet. Sometimes they eat the bark, but in 

 many cases they leave it in heaps upon the ground, having chiselled it 

 from the tree on which it grew, and to which it afforded nourishment, 

 merely for the sake of exercising their teeth and keeping them in proper 

 order, just as a cat delights in clawing the legs of chairs and tables. 



In its native state the fur of the Rabbit is nearly uniform brown, but 

 when the animal is domesticated its coat assumes a variety of hues, such 

 as pure white, jetty black, pied dun, slated gray, and many other tints. 



The Chinchilla, so well known for its exquisitely soft and delicate 

 fur, belongs to the group of animals which are known to zoologists un- 

 der the title of Jerboidas, and which are remarkable for the great com- 

 parative length of their hinder limbs, and their long hair-clothed tails. 



The Chinchilla is an inhabitant of Southern America, living chiefly 

 among the higher mountainous districts, where its thick silken fur is of 

 infinite service in protecting it from the cold. It is a burrowing an- 

 imal, digging its subterranean homes in the valleys which intersect the 

 hilly country in which it lives, and banding together in great numbers 

 in certain favored localities. The food of the Chinchilla is exclusively 



