174 WOODLAND CREATURES 



of the life of our country-side ; yet, as already 

 said, there is no reason to believe it was known 

 here prior to Norman times ; we have no names 

 for it of either English or Celtic origin, the words 

 " rabbit " and " cony " being both derived from 

 the French. 1 It is not alluded to in pre-Norman 

 MSS., and the earliest remains that have been 

 found were some bones in the rubbish heap of 

 Rayleigh Castle, Essex, which was occupied from 

 the beginning of the eleventh to the end of the 

 thirteenth century. A closely allied but slightly 

 different rabbit lived here in pre-Glacial times, 

 the bones of which have been discovered in some 

 of those deposits which have yielded such quantities 

 of remains, but it seems to have been completely 

 exterminated when the great ice sheet crept across 

 the whole of North Europe. The evidence points 

 to our present - day rabbit having come from 

 Spain, where rabbits were known in the earliest 

 times, and having gradually spread hence across 

 the rest of the Continent.* How it got into the 

 British Isles is another matter, but probably some 

 sporting nobleman of Norman times introduced 

 it to provide sport on his English estate. Even 

 yet it is extending its range, for records show 

 that it is now plentiful in many parts of Scot- 

 land, where a few years ago it was not to be 

 met with. 



In this country, where we have several 

 carnivorous animals perfectly competent to keep 



Barrett-Hamilton, A History of British Mammals, p. 177. 

 a Ibid., p. 185. 



