HARES AND RABBITS 215 



The general colour of the rabbit is grayish-brown, but the 

 neck becomes, in some examples, reddish-brown. The throat 

 and belly are white, and the outside of the ear is grayish-brown, 

 the inside being a bufF-white. There is a narrow black edging 

 along the tip of the ear, but no decided black point like that 

 seen in so many forms of hare. The top of the short tail is 

 blackish, the under side, or " scut," is pure white. The upturned 

 white tail of the rabbit when it is in flight undoubtedly serves as 

 a signal and warning to its fellows. The wild rabbit measures 

 in adult specimens about 16 in. from the tip of the nose to the 

 base of the tail, and the tail is another 3 in. in length. The 

 ears are far shorter than those of the common hare, quit^ 

 two-thirds shorter proportionately. The head also is rounder 

 and shorter, and the hind legs are not so disproportionately long 

 as in the hares. 



The rabbit is far more gregarious than the hare ; in fact, it 

 is never found singly at any season of the year, but always in 

 large companies whose burrows form a " warren " of associated 

 dwellings. These burrows are mainly excavated by the fore 

 paws of the rabbit, though masses of earth are flung backwards 

 by the hind feet. These last, indeed, constitute the rabbit's only 

 means of ofi^ence. "With them it stamps loudly when angry, and 

 tame rabbits can deal severe blows or kicks at puppies that may 

 try to interfere with them. In wet or marshy localities with 

 abundant vegetation rabbits construct (more or less by their 

 constant passage to and fro) a labyrinth of runs and galleries in 

 the matted heather, gorse, and other vegetation, and it is said by 

 the late Professor Thomas Bell that these runs in such localities 

 are substituted entirely for burrows. This would seem to be 

 correct, and if so it is an interesting instance of an earlier mode 

 of life on' the part of this member of the Hare family, with whom 

 burrowing in the loose soil may have become a much more 

 recently acquired habit, shared by only one other member of 

 the group.^ 



The female rabbit, when about to give birth to young, 

 ^ Lepus, or Oryctolagus, hispidus. 



