214 BRITISH MAMMALS 



Spain, and a relic of the days when the Azores were an outpost 

 of Western Europe. But there is no certain evidence to prove 

 that early in the fifteenth century the Portuguese were sufficiently 

 interested in the rabbit or the weasel to deliberately introduce 

 these animals into the Azores or into Madeira, directly these 

 islands were made known. From Portugal the rabbit spread over 

 Spain, North Africa, Corsica, and Sardinia, and no doubt from 

 Western France or from Spain reached Ireland and England. 



Into these last-named countries it is supposed to have been 

 introduced, though there is no historical record of the Romans 

 having done so. Since Roman times, at any rate, the rabbit has 

 been a British mammal. It is true that no name for this animal 

 apparently exists either in the Celtic tongues of Britain and Ireland 

 or in Anglo-Saxon which is not derivable from the Latin name 

 Cuniculus. (" Rabbit " comes from the Dutch or Flemish robbe, 

 and is a relatively modern word.) The native name, however, 

 for the wild species may have been lost, and its place taken by 

 the Latin term applied to the domestic animal. The existence of 

 the rabbit in these islands, as a wild creature not originally 

 introduced by man, is a question similar to the origin of the 

 pheasant and the existing park " wild " cattle. The ancestors 

 of all three are considered to have been brought here by the 

 Romans, but no historical record exists definitely proving that 

 the Romans introduced the rabbit or the pheasant. The case of 

 the wild cattle is more dubious. As the pheasant is found fossil in 

 France, and the rabbit admittedly inhabits parts of that country as 

 a wild animal at the present day, it is conceivable that both forms 

 may have reached England without the intervention of man. 



But the rabbit, though it may be indigenous to England, and 

 perhaps to Ireland, is quite a new arrival in Scotland beyond the 

 Lowland districts. In the Highlands it was relatively unknown 

 seventy years ago. It seems to be pretty certain that the fossil 

 remains of the true rabbit exist in British formations dating back 

 to the Prehistoric and Pleistocene periods. These remains have 

 been found in Ireland, and in Devonshire, Yorkshire, and else- 

 where in England. 



