90 SO'JPES AND 



Hams, in his History of Vermont, says, that a large hare weighs eight pounds., 

 and the largest rabbit seven pounds. Ilearne saw the varying hare as far north 

 as latitude seventy two, and says it sometimes weighs fourteen or fifteen pounds. 

 As connected with this subject it may not be amiss to observe, that it is not 

 probable that either our hare or rabbit can be domesticated. The common rab- 

 bit of Europe, however, would flourish here, and its skin alone would render it 

 an object to have warrens made for its habitation. Its amazing fecundity is well 

 known. It lives to the age of eight or nine years, and is capable of procreating 

 at five or six months. The female is gravid thirty or thirty-one days, and she 

 will bear seven times annually, and produce five young at each time. Supposing 

 this to happen during the space of four years, and that three of the young at 

 each producing are females, the increase will be 478,062. This exceeds the fe- 

 cundity of the pigeon, which, according to Pliny, may produce, from one pair, 

 14,70 in four years. Until of late years the gray rabbit was the only species 

 in the english warrens ; at present the silver- haired rabbit is sought after, and 

 has, within the few last years, supplanted the other, because the skin is dressed 

 s a fur, and sells for more. (Daniel's Rural Sports, vol. 1.) It is believed 

 that the tame rabbit which has been brought into this country in a domestic state^ 

 is not the proper rabbit for stocking warrens. It is not a little surprising that 

 this easy source of profit has been entirely overlooked by us. 



NOTE 21. 



Homer, who has been closely imitated by all the celebrated epic poets, has 

 thos described the migration of cranes : 



So when inclement winters vex the plain 

 With piercing frost, or thick descending rain ; 

 To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly, 

 With noise and order, through the midway sky -. 

 To pigmy nations wounds and death they bring, 

 And all the war descends upon the wing. 



POPE'S TRANSLATION. 

 Virgil thus describes the same subject : 



Qualcssub nubibus atris, 



Stryni-miae dant signa, grues, atqne aethera tranant 

 Cum sonitu, fugiuntque notos clamore secundo. 



JKEID, Lib. 10. 



