348 VERTEBRATA. 



rabbits are generally gregarious. The young of the rabbit are produced naked and blind, in 

 which i -■ - it is unlike the hare. 



babbits have 1 d known from the earliest periods of history, and the first or earliest accounts 



which we have of them represent thero as inhabiting the warm and Bandy places of southern 

 climates, especially those Dear the shores of the sea. We are informed by Pliny that Spain and 

 G were those countries of Europe in which rabbits were first found; and it is related both 



by him and Varro that an entire town in Spain was overturned by the incredible number of 

 rabbits which lodged under its foundations ; and Strabo tells us that the people of the Balearic 

 Islands, apprehensive that their country would be rendered desolate by the vast multiplication 

 of these creatures, Bent deputies to Rome, to implore military aid against this novel description 



The Spaniards, in subsequent periods, thinned their numbers by means of fer 

 which they had imported from Africa. It is asserted by Spallanzani, that when the crops were 

 d in Baziluzzo, one of the Lipari Islands, by an extraordinary increase of rabbits, the inhabi- 

 tants had recourse to large importations of cats, winch in a very short period of time entirely 

 ! them. 



It is supposed that ' species was originally confined to Africa, and was afterward diffi; 

 over the warmer and milder parts of Europe and Asia. It has found in its introduction to 

 America a climate congenial to its constitution, and, in consequence, has very rapidly mul- 

 tiplied, especially in the more tropical portions of that continent. It does not thrive in S 

 den in the open air. but requires the warmth of confinement. When only five or six months 

 old, rabbits arc capable of breeding; their term of gestation is thirty or thirty-one day-, and a 

 o r,,us female will produce about eight young rabbits seven times in the course of a year; so 

 that in the course of tour years her progeny, in theory, would amount to one million two hundred 

 and seventy-four thousand eight hundred and forty individuals. But we cannot average, in the 

 first instance, the amount of fertility at the maximum; and, secondly, as we have observed in 

 the history of the hare, the race is obnoxious to the attacks of men, and of various predao 

 anin. -. 



If the dam does not find a hole suited to her purpose previously to her bringing forth, - 

 ligs not in a straight line, but in a zig-zag direction, enlarging the bottom of it every way. 



and pulling from her own body a quantity of hair, with which she makes a warm and comfortable 

 bed tor her young. The female during the two first days seldom if ever quits her young, ui 

 when prosed by hunger, at which time she eats with surprising quickness, and returns imme- 

 diately. When she ventures abroad, she covers up the hole very carefully, scarcely leaving anj 

 perceptible mark of it. and conceals her charge from the male lest he should devour them. S 

 continues these attentions for about a month,. when the young are able to provide for themselves. 

 - > t" avoid all damp places, and prefers a light, sandy, dry soil to any other. 



The ordinary term of a rabbit's existence i- from seven to- ten years. On a dead level it find- 

 it difficult to make it- burrow, a-, in such a situation, the mold must, be thrown upward 



whereas, on the side of an eminence, the declivity afford- a ready fall for the earth. A- 

 the rabbits on the island of Sor, near Senegal, do not burrow, we are tempted to suspect that 

 the __ _■ of holes for themselves in colder climates is an acquired art, prompted by circum- 

 stances. This conjecture will appear still more probable when we reflect that domestic rabbits 



r give thems - the trouble of digging, and that when a warren is attempted to be si 

 with a domestic breed, they and their offspring remain on the surface, and never begin to make 

 hole- for their protection until they have endured many hardships and passed through m 

 generati 



The wild rabbit we have been describing, called by the French Lapin de Garenne, is found in 

 southern and central Europe, preferring elevated and rocky places, and being uniformly browi 



the upper part-, with reddish spots behind the ears, and the lower parts whitish. The domi 

 kind-, agreeably to a law which applies to many other animals, are of various colors. In the 

 English preserves these wild rabbits often multiply to a great extent, and sometimes they ma] 

 by hundreds sporting among the thickets, which are deemed their appropriate homes. M 

 of them often burrow near each other. Buch a collection being called a warren. Poachers take 



