Quadrupeds. 7925 



is complete in the female. Pregnant hares have been captured, and 

 their young, born in captivity, reared artificially, but have failed to 

 reproduce. The two species are natural enemies. The hare avoids 

 the rabbit, and, although stronger, is generally worsted in a combat. 

 Sportsmen well know that where rabbits are abundant there ai'e few- 

 hares ; and, if the latter are to increase, the former must be destroyed. 

 These distinctions with others, external and internal, cannot be 

 attributed to accidental influences, and no one has even imagined that 

 two species so distinct could have had a common origin ; yet they can 

 be crossed, although only with the greatest difficulty. 



Buffon's unsuccessful experiments are then referred to, but M. Broca 

 points out that in those cases no union was effected between the male 

 hare and doe rabbit j with the contrary arrangement coupling took 

 place, but there was no produce. 



The first decided success in crossing the hare and rabbit appears to 

 have been obtained in 1774, and an account of it was published at 

 Milan in 1780. In this instance a young female hare was reared in 

 company with a young rabbit of the opposite sex by the Abb6 

 Domenico Gagliari, at Maro, in Northern Italy. When about seven 

 months old, the hare produced two young — one resembling the mother, 

 the other like a rabbit; a litter of four was afterwards born, and all 

 the hybrids grew up. Some lime after the rabbit died, but the hare 

 continued to breed with her descendants, and they also reproduced 

 inter se. The naturalist Carlo Amoretti investigated this case of 

 fertile hybridism, and published an account of it at Milan, in a work 

 devoted to science and art. M. Broca considers this experiment well 

 authenticated, and says it is impossible to exaggerate its importance. 

 He comes then to the experiment at Angouleme, conducted by 

 M. Alfred Roux, President of the Agricultural Society of Charente. 



The first attempts by M. Roux were made in 1847, but it is only 

 since 1850 that he has seen his way clear, and proceeded on a regular 

 system. The results he has obtained may be considered definite : 

 these results are known to all the inhabitants of Angouleme ; they are 

 as important from an economical as from a scientific point of view, and 

 yet, strangely, remarks M. Broca, they have not yet been published. 

 Chance alone, in 1857, made M. Broca acquainted with them, and 

 soon afterwards he went to Angouleme to see for himself. In March, 

 1859, he writes, "Now the establishment of M. Roux is in full pros- 

 perity. I have just made a second journey to Angouleme to satisfy 

 myself; the leporines are in their tenth generation. The hybrid race 

 is by no means etiolated, and the produce, on the contrary, are finer 



