104 DOMESTIC BABBITS. Chap. IV. 



In 1631 Gervaise Markham writes, " You shall not, as in other 

 cattell, looke to their shape, but to their richnesse, onely elect 

 your buckes, the largest and goodliest conies you can get; 

 and for the richnesse of the skin, that is accounted the 

 richest which hath the equallest mixture of blacke and white 

 haire together, yet the blacke rather shadowing the white ; the 



furre should be thicke, deepe, smooth, and shining; 



they are of body much fatter and larger, and, when another 

 skin is worth two or three pence, they are worth two shillings." 

 From this full description we see that silver-grey rabbits existed 

 in England at this period ; and, what is far more important, we 

 see that the breeding or selection of rabbits was then carefully 

 attended to. Aldrovandi, in 1637, describes, on the authority 

 of several old writers (as Scaliger, in 1557), rabbits of various 

 colours, some " like a hare," and he adds that P. Valerianic 

 (who died a very old man in 1558) saw at Verona rabbits four 

 times bigger than ours. 2 



From the fact of the rabbit having been domesticated at an 

 ancient period, we must look to the northern hemisphere of the 

 Old World, and to the warmer temperate regions alone, for 

 the aboriginal parent-form ; for the rabbit cannot live without 

 protection in countries as cold as Sweden, and, though it has 

 run wild in the tropical island of Jamaica, it has never greatly 

 multiplied there. It now exists, and has long existed, in the 

 warmer temperate parts of Europe, for fossil remains have been 

 found in several countries. 3 The domestic rabbit readily becomes 

 feral in these same countries, and when variously coloured kinds 

 are turned out they generally revert to the ordinary grey 

 colour. 4 The wild rabbits, if taken young, can be domesticated, 

 though the process is generally very troublesome. 5 The various 



2 U. Aldrovandi, ' De Quadrupedibus s 'Pigeons and Babbits/ by E S 

 digitalis/ 1637, p. 383. For Confucius Delamer, 1854, p. 133. Sir J. Sebright 

 and G. Markham, see a writer who ('Observations on Instinct/ 1836, p. i 

 has studied the subject, in ' Cottage 10) speaks most strongly on the d'iffl- 

 Gardener,' Jan. 22nd, 1861, p. 250. cu i ty . But this difficulty is not in- 



3 Owen, ' British Fossil Mammals/ p. variable, as I have received two accounts 



212 - of perfect success in taming and breed- 



4 Bechstein, ' Naturgescli. Deutsch- irig f rom the wild rabbii See a]g0 Dr 



lands,' 1801, b. i. p. 1133. I have P. Broca, in ' Journal de la Physiologic' 

 received similar accounts with respect torn. ii. p. 368. 

 to England and Scotland. 



I 



