HO DOMESTIC RABBITS. Chap. IV. 



silver-greys are born black and afterwards become sprinkled with 

 white. Exceptions, however, and of a directly opposite nature, 

 occasionally occur in both cases. For young silver-greys are 

 sometimes born in warrens, as I hear from Mr. W. Birch, of a 

 cream-colour, but these young animals ultimately become black. 

 The Himalayans, on the other hand, sometimes produce, as is 

 stated by an experienced amateur, 18 a single black young one 

 in a litter; but such, before two months elapse, become per- 

 fectly white. 



To sum up the whole curious case : wild silver-greys may 

 be considered as black rabbits which become grey at an early 

 period of life. When they are crossed with common rabbits, the 

 offspring are said not to have blended colours, but to take after 

 either parent ; and in this respect they resemble black and 

 albino varieties of most quadrupeds, which often transmit their 

 colours in this same manner. When they are crossed with 

 chinchillas, that is, with a paler sub -variety, the young are at 

 first pure albinoes, but soon become dark-coloured in certain parts 

 of their bodies, and are then called Himalayans. The youno- 

 Himalayans, however, are sometimes at first either pale grey or 

 completely black, in either case changing after a time to white. 

 In a future chapter I shall advance a large body of facts showing 

 that, when two varieties are crossed both of which differ in colour 

 from their parent-stock, there is a strong tendency in the young 

 to revert to the aboriginal colour ; and what is very remark- 

 able, this reversion occasionally supervenes, not before birth, but 

 during the growth of the animal. Hence, if it could be shown 

 that silver-greys and chinchillas were the offspring of a cross 

 between a black and albino variety with the colours intimately 

 blended — a supposition in itself not improbable, and supported 

 by the circumstance of silver-greys in warrens sometimes 

 producing creamy-white young, which ultimately become black 

 — then all the above given paradoxical facts on the changes of 

 colour in silver-greys and in their descendants the Himalayans 

 would come under the law of reversion, supervening at different 

 periods of growth and in different degrees, either to the original 

 black or to the original albino parent-variety. 



18 'Phenomenon in Himalayan Babbits,' in 'Journal of Horticulture,' 1865, 

 Jan. 27th, p. 102. 



