PREHISTORIC FAUNA. 335 



excavations of an earlier date in this country; though it is difficult to 

 think that neolithic man would have neglected it as an article of diet 

 unless debarred by superstition from making use of it. 



The rabbit, Lepus cuniculus, finds a place in several catalogues of 

 British Prehistoric Mammalia; Mr. Pengelly, however, writing of the 

 discovery of the cave man at Mentone (' Trans. Devon Association for 

 the Advancement of Science,' vi. 1874, pp. 318, 801, 818, 840), says that 

 the discovery of its bones in that deposit does 'not strengthen the 

 evidence for its antiquity:' though there is of course no doubt that the 

 remains of this animal, which still survives as a member of the fauna of 

 North Africa, form an essential and not merely an accidental constituent 

 in the quaternary deposits of Mediterranean caves (see Prof. Busk, 

 'Zool. Trans.' x. 2, p. 128), and though it is difficult to set aside the 

 evidence of their holding a similar relation to some of our own caves. 

 Professor Eogers, who in his ' History of Agriculture and Prices in Eng- 

 land' has given us (vol. i. pp. 33, 65, 123, 340, 341, 583, vol. ii. 

 55 8 -9 *) records of the high prices paid for these animals in the middle 



1 In Daniel's ' Kural Sports/ 1801, vol. i. p. 347, there is the following statement :— 

 ' In an account of the prices of provisions, &c. at the installation feast of Ralph de 

 Borne, abbot of St. Austin's, Canterbury, a.d. 1309 (contained in the fourth volume 

 of Dr. Henry's valuable History of Great Britain), we have among others the fol- 

 lowing articles : — 



£ e. d. 



600 rabbits 1500 



Partridges, mallards, bitterns, larks . . 18 o o 



200 pigs 500 



As partridges are here associated with other birds and no mention made' of their 

 number, their price in these times cannot be ascertained, but a rabbit appears to have 

 been sold at the same price as a pig, viz. sixpence each. Their relative value has con- 

 siderably altered in the interval between that day and this.' 



I should not agree with the view put forward (I.e. 341") by my friend and former 

 tutor Professor Rogers, to the effect that rabbits when once introduced ' would spread 

 very slowly over the country.' We have good natural history evidence, both direct 

 and analogical, for holding that starting even from a single centre, and as individuals 

 ranging only for short distances, they would form a circle with a very rapidly widen- 

 ing circumference in the absence or paucity of natural enemies. Literary evidence 

 in the same direction is furnished by the beautiful lines of our fourteenth-century 

 poet, Chaucer, in the 'Romaunt of the Rose,' ed. Bell, 1855, vol. vii. p. 60 : — 

 'Conies there were also playing 

 That comen out of her claperes, 

 Of sondry coloures and maneres, 

 And maden many a turneying 

 Upon the freshe gras sprynging.' 

 So also in the 'Assembly of Foules,' vol. iv. p. 196, in a parallel passage of equal 

 beauty we have the line 



•The pretty conies to hir playe gan hie.' 

 Whence it would appear that the animal in question was a familiar object to English 



