196 ABOUT RABBITS. [chap. ix. 



Near Port Pleasant dark brown prevails, whereas south of 

 Choiseul Sound (which almost divides the island into two 

 parts), white beasts with black heads and feet are the most 

 common : in all parts black, and some spotted animals may 

 be observed. Captain Sulivan remarks, that the difference 

 in the prevailing colours was so obvious, that in looking for 

 the herds near Port Pleasant, they appeared for a long 

 distance like black spots, while south of Choiseul Sound 

 they appeared like white spots on the hill-sides. Captain 

 Sulivan thinks that the herds do not mingle ; and it is a 

 singular fact, that the mouse-coloured cattle, though living 

 on the high land, calve about a month earlier in the season 

 than the other coloured beasts on the lower land. It is 

 interesting thus to find the once domesticated cattle break- 

 ing into three colours, of which some one colour would in all 

 probability ultimately prevail over the others, if the herds 

 were left undisturbed for the next several centuries. 



The rabbit is another animal which has been introduced, 

 and has succeeded very well ; so that they abound over 

 large parts of the island. Yet, like the horses, they are 

 confined within certain limits ; for they have not crossed the 

 central chain of hills, nor would they have extended even so 

 far as its base, if, as the Gauchos informed me, small 

 colonies had not been carried there. I should not have 

 supposed that these animals, natives of northern Africa, 

 could have existed in a climate so humid as this, and which 

 enjoys so little sunshine that even wheat ripens only 

 occasionally. It is asserted that in Sweden, which any one 

 would have thought a more favourable climate, the rabbit 

 cannot live out of doors. The first few pair, moreover, had 

 here to contend against pre-existing enemies, in the fox 

 and some large hawks. The French naturalists have con- 

 sidered the black variety a distinct species, and called it 

 Lepus Magellanicus.* They imagined that Magellan, when 

 talking of an animal under the name of "conejos" in the 

 Strait of Magellan, referred to this species ; but he was 

 alluding to a small cavy, which to this day is thus called by 

 the Spaniards. The Gauchos laughed at the idea of the 



* Lesson's "Zoology of the Voyage of the Coquille," torn, i., p. 168. All 

 the early voyagers, and especially Bougainville, distinctly state that the 

 wolf-like fox was the only native animal on the island. The distinction of 

 the rabbit as a species, is taken from peculiarities in the fur, from the shape 

 of the head, and from the shortness of the ears. I may here observe that 

 the difference between the Iriah and English hare rests upon nearly similar 

 characters, only more strongly marked 



