IX WILD RABBITS 203 



that in different parts of this one small island, different colours 

 predominate. Round Mount Usborne, at a height of from 1000 

 to 1500 feet above the sea, about half of some of the herds are 

 mouse or lead coloured, a tint which is not common in other 

 parts of the island. Near Port Pleasant dark brown prevails, 

 whereas south of Choiseul Sound (which almost divides the island 

 into two parts) white beasts with black heads and feet are the 

 most common : in all parts black, and some spotted animals may 

 be observed. Capt. Sulivan remarks that the difference in the 

 prevailing colours was so obvious, that in looking for the herds 

 near Port Pleasant, they appeared from a long distance like black 

 spots, whilst south of Choiseul Sound they appeared like white 

 spots on the hill-sides. Capt. Sulivan thinks that the herds do not 

 mingle ; and it is a singular fact, that the mouse -coloured cattle, 

 though living on the high land, calve about a month earlier in the 

 season than the other coloured beasts on the lower land. It is 

 interesting thus to find the once domesticated cattle breaking into 

 three colours, of which some one colour would in all probability 

 ultimately prevail over the others, if the herds were left undis- 

 turbed for the next several centuries. 



The rabbit is another animal which has been introduced, and 

 has succeeded very well ; so that they abound over large parts 

 of the island. Yet, like the horses, they are confined within 

 certain limits ; for they have not crossed the central chain of 

 hills, nor would they have extended even so far as its base, if, as 

 the Gauchos informed me, small colonies had not been carried 

 there. I should not have supposed that these animals, natives of 

 Northern Africa, could have existed in a climate so humid as 

 this, and which enjoys so little sunshine that even wheat ripens 

 only occasionally. It is asserted that in Sweden, which any one 

 would have thought a more favourable climate, the rabbit cannot 

 live out of doors. The first few pairs, moreover, had here to 

 contend against pre-existing enemies, in the fox and some large 

 hawks. The French naturalists have considered the black 

 variety a distinct species, and called it Lepus Magellanicus.^ 



1 Lesson's Zoology of the Voyage of the Coqtiille, torn. i. p. 168. All the early 

 voyagers, and especially Bougainville, distinctly state that the wolf- like fox was the 

 only native animal on the island. The distinction of the rabbit as a species is taken 

 from peculiarities in the fur, from the shape of the head, and from the shortness of 

 the ears. I may here observe that the difference between the Irish and English hare 

 rests upon nearly similar characters, only more strongly marked. 



