Chap. IV. THEIR VARIATION. 



105 



domestic races are often crossed, and are believed to be per- 

 fectly fertile together, and a perfect gradation can be shown to 

 exist from the largest domestic kinds, having enormously deve- 

 loped ears, to the common wild kind. The parent-form must 

 have been a burrowing animal, a habit not common, as far as I 

 can discover, to any other species in the large genus Lepus. Only 

 one wild species is known with certainty to exist in Europe ; but 

 the rabbit (if it be a true rabbit) from Mount Sinai, and likewise 

 that from Algeria, present slight differences; and these forms have 

 been considered by some authors as specifically distinct. 6 But such 

 slight differences would aid us little in explaining the more con- 

 siderable differences characteristic of the several domestic races. 

 If the latter are the descendants of two or more closely allied 

 species, all, excepting the common rabbit, have been extermi- 

 nated in a wild state ; and this is very improbable, seeing with 

 what pertinacity this animal holds its ground. From these 

 several reasons we may infer with safety that all the domestic 

 breeds are the descendants of the common wild species. But 

 from what we hear of the late marvellous success in rearing 

 hybrids between the hare and rabbit, 7 it is possible, though not 

 probable, from the great difficulty in making the first cross, that 

 some of the larger races, which are coloured like the hare, may 

 have been modified by crosses with this animal. Nevertheless, 

 the chief differences in the skeletons of the several domestic 

 breeds cannot, as we shall presently see, have been derived from 

 a cross with the hare. 



There are many breeds which transmit their characters more 

 or less truly. Every one has seen the enormous lop-eared 

 rabbits exhibited at our shows ; various allied sub-breeds are 

 reared on the Continent, such as the so-called Andalusian, which 

 is said to have a large head with a round forehead, and to attain 

 a greater size than any other kind ; another large Paris breed 

 is named the Kouennais, and has a square head ; the so-called 

 Patagonian rabbit has remarkably short ears and a large 

 round head. Although I have not seen all these breeds, I feel 

 some doubt about there being any marked difference in the 



6 Gervais, 'Hist. Nat. des Mammi- moir on this subject in Brown-Sequard's 

 feres,' torn. i. p. 292. < Joum< de> p hys<> > vol# „, p . 367. 



7 See Dr. P. Broea's interesting me- 



