244 UTILITARIAN ZOOLOGY 



The Rabbit has long played a minor part in the civilization 

 of various peoples, regarding which Darwin gives the following 

 information (in Animals and Plants under Domestication)'. 

 "The tame rabbit has been domesticated from an ancient period. 

 Confucius ranges rabbits among animals worthy to be sacrificed 

 to the gods, and, as he prescribes their multiplication, they were 

 probably at this early period domesticated in China. They are 

 mentioned by several of the classical writers. In 1631 Gervaise 

 Markham writes : * You shall not, as ia other cattell, looke to 

 their shape, but to their richnesse, onely elect your buckes, the 

 largest and goodliest conies you can get; and for the richnesse 

 of the skin, that is accounted the richest which has the equallest 



mixture of blacke and white hair 

 together, yet the blacke rather 

 shadowing the white; the furre 

 should be thicke, deepe, smooth, 

 and shining; . . . they are of 

 body much fatter and larger, 

 and, when another skin is worth 

 two or three pence, they are 



Fi g . II77 .-An g ora Rabbit worth two shillings'. From this 



full description we see that silver- 

 gray rabbits existed in England at this period; and, what is far 

 more important, we see that the breeding or selection of rabbits 

 was then carefully attended to." 



Although the Hare cannot now be called a domesticated 

 animal, it was so in ancient Rome, as it happened to be one of 

 the numerous animals relished by the epicure, its shoulder in 

 particular being esteemed a dainty. The animals were kept 

 in a hare-preserve or leporarium, which was a large enclosed 

 park. They were sufficiently tame to come and be fed in winter, 

 a horn being blown as a signal to them. At first, it would seem, 

 intended for hares only, the leporaria were at a later date tenanted 

 by rabbits as well, these having been introduced from Spain. 



THE FAT DORMOUSE OR LOIR (Mvoxus GLIS, fig. 1178). This 

 was another animal that appealed to the palate of the Roman 

 epicure. Hough ton gives the following account of the way in 

 which it was treated (in Natural History of the Ancients)' 

 " Dormice (glires) were very highly esteemed as food by the old 

 Romans. Small yards were walled around, in which were planted 



