EVIDENCE FROM DOMESTICATION 37 



count of the limitations of time, to compress into a 

 few sentences, what Darwin has given in two large 

 volumes. To these fascinating volumes may be re- 

 ferred the reader who is interested in following out 

 this line of evidence. N^ 



Even under conditions which cannot be called 

 domestication, certain remarkable transformations of 

 animals have been observed. An interesting case of 

 this sort is that of the Porto Santo Rabbit, as de- 

 scribed by Darwin. At a date variously given as 

 1418, 1419 and 1420, the Portuguese navigator Zarco 

 set free a doe and newly born litter of young rabbits 

 upon the small island of Porto Santo, not far from 

 Madeira. From the fact that the doe littered on ship- 

 board, it is evident that she belonged to one of the 

 domestic races, all of which have been derived from 

 the European wild Rabbit (Lepus cuniculus). The 

 absence of any carnivorous creatures, which would 

 have preyed upon the rabbits, or of any other land 

 mammal, which might have competed with them for 

 food, led to a very rapid multiplication, so that in 

 less than 40 years they are described as "innumer- 

 able." As a result of four and a half centuries of 

 isolation under these novel conditions, the Porto 

 Santo Rabbit has become so different from any of tne 

 domestic races and from its wild progenitor, that 

 Haeckel has described it as a distinct species, Lepus 

 huxleyi. The new form is much smaller than the 

 European wild Rabbit, weighing but little more than 

 half as much as the latter, and differs considerably in 



