734 RODENTIA. 



ears, as well as by its habits. It has been extensively acclimatized in 

 America. It exists in great numbers in Sable Island, Nova Scotia, and 

 on Rabbit Key, near Key West. It is found everywhere in Europe, and 

 is supposed to have spread northward from Africa. 



The Rabbit is one of the most familiar of British quadrupeds, having 

 taken firm possession of the soil into which it has been imported, and 

 multiplied to so great an extent that its numbers can hardly be kept 

 within proper bounds without annual and wholesale massacres. As it is 

 more tameable than the hare, it has long been ranked among the chief 

 of domestic pets, and has been so modified by careful management that 

 it has developed itself into many permanent varieties, which would be 

 considered as different species by one who saw them for the first time. 

 The little brown, short-furred wild Rabbit of the warren bears hardly 

 less resemblance to the long-haired, silken-furred, Angola variety, than 

 the Angola to the pure Lop-eared variety with its enormously lengthened 

 ears and its heavy dewlap. 



In its wild state the Rabbit is an intelligent and amusing creature, 

 full of odd little tricks, and given to playing the most ludicrous antics as 

 it gambols about the warren in all the unrestrained joyousness of habit- 

 ual freedom. No one can form any true conception of the Rabbit nature 

 until he has observed the little creatures in their native home ; and when 

 he has once done so, he will seize the earliest opportunity of resuming 

 his acquaintance with the droll little creatures. 



The female Rabbit is exceedingly prolific, and has seven or eight lit- 

 ters a year, with from four to eight in each. Some days before bringing 

 forth, the Rabbit excavates a chamber which is specially destined for its 

 progeny. This burrow, which is straight or crooked, as the case may 

 be, invariably terminates in a circular apartment, furnished with a bed 

 of dry herbage, which again is covered with a layer of down, that the 

 mother has torn from the lower portion of her body. On this bed the 

 young are deposited. 



