98 History of Nature. [BOOK VIII. 



spread. This Creature is said to live in no other Climate 

 but in Ethiopia, where it is produced. 



CHAPTER LV. 

 Of Hares and Rabbits. 



OF Hares there are many sorts. 1 On the Alps they are 

 white ; and it is thought that in the Winter Months they 

 feed on Snow ; and certainly when it is thawed, all the Year 

 after they are brownish red ; and this Creature is otherwise 

 bred up in extreme Cold. Of the Hare kind are they also 

 which in Spain they call (Cuniculi 2 ) Rabbits, which are ex- 

 ceedingly fruitful ; so that having devoured all the Corn in 

 the Field before Harvest in the Balearic Islands, they 

 brought thereby a Famine on the People. There is a very 

 dainty Dish at Table made of the young, either cut out of 

 the Dam's Belly, or taken from them when they are suck- 

 ing, without cleansing their Entrails : and they call it Lau- 

 rices. It is certain that the Inhabitants of the Balearic 

 Islands made a Petition to Divus Augustus Ccesar for mili- 

 tary Aid to destroy the great Increase of these Creatures 

 among them. Ferrets 3 are a favourite Resource for hunt- 

 ing them. They put them into their Holes, which within 

 the Ground have many Passages (from whence these Crea- 

 tures are called Cuniculi} : and when they are driven out 

 of their Earth they are soon taken. Archelaus writeth, 

 that so many Passages as the Hare hath for his Dung, so 



1 Lepus timidus. LINN. The Hare. Baron Cuvier says that during 

 the second Punic War, Fulvius Hirpinus devised the mode of retaining 

 quadrupeds in parks. And that these parks were named Leporaria, 

 because three sorts of hares were reared in them ; the common hare, the 

 original Spanish rabbit, and the variegated or alpine hare, a species now 

 almost entirely destroyed. 



The flesh of the hare was highly valued : Martial says (Xenia, 87) : 



" Inter aves turdus, siquis me Judice certet, 

 Inter Quadrupedes gloria prima Lepus." Wern. Club. 



2 Lepus cuniculus. LINN. The Rabbit. Wern. Club. 



3 Musielafuro. Li-HN. The Ferret. Wern. Club. 



