256 MAMMALIA—RABBIT. 
THE RABBSIT2A 

TuoueH the hare and the rabbit arc, externally as well as internauy, very 
much alike, yet they form two distinct and separate species. 
The fecundity of the rabbit is even greater than that of the hare; and, 
without crediting what Wotton has advanced, that one pair only, being left 
together in an island, produced six thousand in one year, it is certain, that 
these creatures multiply so prodigiously in countries which are proper for 
the breed, that the earth cannot furnish them with subsistence: they destroy 
herbs, roots, grain, fruit, and even trees and shrubs; and, were it not for 
the use made in Europe of the dog and the ferret, they would reduce the 
country toa desert. In the reign of Augustus, they became such a nuisance 
to the Balearic Islands, that the inhabitants were under the necessity of 
petitioning the emperor to send a military force to destroy them. The rab- 
bit not only engenders and produces oftener than the hare, but it has more 
ways to escape from its enemies, and to avoid the sight of man. 
This circumstance alone may suffice to prove that the rabbit is superior 
to the hare in point of sagacity. Both are alike in their conformation, and 
both have it in their power to dig retreats for themselves. Both are timid 
to an excess; but the one, possessed of less art, is contented with forming 
a residence on the surface of the earth, where it remains continually expos- 
ed; while the other, by a more improved instinct, takes the trouble to dig 
into the earth, and there to make itself an asylum; and so true is it, that 
they act in this case from a kind of reason or reflection, that we never see 
the domestic rabbit employed in the same work. Rabbits give the alarm to 
each other by thumping on the ground with one of their hind feet, which 
may be heard to a considerable distance. 
The domestic rabbits, like all other animals, vary in their color; white, 
black, and gray, belong properly to nature. The black rabbits are the 
most scarce. 
These animals are able to engender and produce at the age of five or six 
months. It is asserted, that they commonly attach themselves to one 
particular female, and never quit her. She goes with young thirty or 


1 Lepus cuniculus, Lin. 
