i8o LEPORID^— ORYCTOLAGUS 



hedgehog, a term applied to non-burrowing rabbits by dealers and 

 fanciers (Blaine, EncyclopcBdia of Rural Sports, 187S, 883) ; jack-rabbit, a 

 common name for a hare in North America, applied to half-grown 

 specimens in North Lincolnshire {Dial. Diet.') ; jack-sharp of Lancashire 

 {Dial. Diet.) ; map of Banff and Clydesdale {Dial. Diet.), which is also 

 a name for a rabbit-call in Banff, Aberdeen, and Perth {^DiaL Diet.) ; 

 mappy {Dial. Diet.) of Northumberland, Galloway, Lothian, Fife, and 

 Aberdeen, from the verb map = \.o nibble, compare mapsie='a. young 

 hare {^Dial. Diet.) ; parker, a term apparently synonymous, or nearly so, 

 with hedgehog (Blaine, op. cit.) ; parson, see clargyman above ; rump, i.e., 

 a young one, of Hereford {Dial. Diet?) ; seut, also written scutt in 

 Nottingham and Sussex, and skut in Kent, West Yorkshire, Northumber- 

 land, and Lakeland, a common word for the tail of a hare or rabbit in 

 Great Britain and Ireland, also occasionally applied to the animal 

 itself, compare " Rabbits flashed here and there with little white scuts 

 twinkling through the gorse" (Phillpotts, Prophets, 1897, 1^9, in Dial. 

 Diet.) ; hence seutty means short-tailed, and " to show the white rabbit 

 scut " is the same as to " show the white feather " {Dial. Diet.) ; sweet- 

 heart, a tame rabbit (Blaine, op. eit.) ; warrener, a rabbit living in a 

 warren (Blaine, op. eit.), ci. parker, above. 



(Celtic) : — There is no original name, but forms of rabbit or cony 

 are used. Of the latter, the Irish version is coinin ; the Scottish, coinean 

 or conning; the MdiXi^, conning ; the Welsh, trzy^/^^, plural cwninger ; 

 the Cornish, cynin. Variants are numerous. 



Hares and rabbits are said to kindle when they bring forth their 

 young ; compare : — 



"As the cony that you see dwell where she is kindled." 



— Shakespeare, As You Like It, III., ii. 



The word has several variants, as kennel of north country, kinly of 

 West Somerset, kinnle of Durham and east and west Yorkshire, kintk 

 of Durham {Dial Diet.). It is also applied to cats, although this usage 

 appears to be dying out; compare "A Kyndyll of yong Cattis" {The 

 Boke of St Albans, i486), and is evidently a word of some antiquity. 



History : ^ — The Rabbit was not known to the Greeks of classical 

 times, although Xenophon's description, in his Cynegetieus, of a certain 

 small species of hare has sometimes been interpreted as referring to it. 



' The numerous references included in this section have been collected from 

 a number of papers and works, all of which it would be impossible to mention. 

 The following cannot be omitted: — (i) "The Rabbit (Z^/z^j «^«zVK/«.f) as known to 

 the Ancients," by Houghton, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., March 1869, 279-183; (2) 

 A long paper on the same subject by Brandt, Bull, de lAcad. Imp. des Sci. de St 

 Petersbourg,vf..\wxe. 4, 1875, 459-9° j (3) The Wanderitigs of Plants and Animals, 

 by Hehn, English ed. of Stallybrass, 1885, 343-45, 489-91 ; (4) Gleanings from the 

 Natural History of the Ancients, by Watkins, 1896, 161-162 ; and (5) Die Antike 

 Tierwelt, by Keller, 1909. 



