112 DOMESTIC EABBITS. Chap. IV. 



warren must not be stocked with both silver-greys and common 

 rabbits ; otherwise " in a few years there will be none but common 

 greys surviving." 20 When rabbits run wild in foreign countries 

 under different conditions of life, they by no means always revert 

 to their aboriginal colour. In Jamaica the feral rabbits are 

 described as " slate-coloured, deeply tinted with sprinklings of 

 white on the neck, on the shoulders, and on the back ; softening 

 off to blue-white under the breast and belly." 21 But in this 

 tropical island the conditions were not favourable to their in- 

 crease, and they never spread widely ; and, as I hear from Mr. R. 

 Hill, owing to a great fire which occurred in the woods, they have 

 now become extinct. Babbits during many years have run wild 

 in the Falkland Islands ; they are abundant in certain parts, but 

 do not spread extensively. Most of them are of the common 

 grey colour ; a few, as I am informed by Admiral Sulivan, are 

 hare-coloured, and many are black, often with nearly symme- 

 trical white marks on their faces. Hence, M. Lesson described 

 the black variety as a distinct species, under the name of Lepus 

 magellanicus, but this, as I have elsewhere shown, is an error. 22 

 Within recent times the sealers have stocked some of the small 

 outlying islets in the Falkland group with rabbits ; and on 

 Pebble Islet, as I hear from Admiral Sulivan, a large proportion 

 are hare-coloured, whereas on Eabbit Islet a large proportion are 

 of a bluish colour which is not elsewhere seen. How the rabbits 

 were coloured which were turned out on these islets is not known. 

 The rabbits which have become feral on the island of Porto 

 Santo, near Madeira, deserve a fuller account. In 1418 or 

 1419, J. Gonzales Zarco 23 happened to have a female rabbit on 

 board which had produced young during the voyage, and he turned 

 them all out on the island. These animals soon increased so 



20 Delamer on ' Pigeons and Babbits,' 22 Darwin's 'Journal of Besearches, ' 

 p. 114. p. 193 ; and ' Zoology of the Voyage of 



21 Gosse's ' Sojourn in Jamaica,' 1851, the Beagle : Mammalia,' p. 92. 



p. 441, as described by an excellent 23 Kerr's ' Collection of Voyages,' vol. 

 observer, Mr. E. Hill. This is the only ii. p. 177 ; p. 205 for Cada Mosto. Accord- 

 known case in which rabbits have ing to a work published in Lisbon 

 become feral in a hot country. They in 1717, entitled 'Historia Insulana,' 

 can be kept, however, at Loanda (see writen by a Jesuit, the rabbits were 

 Livingstone's ' Travels,' p. 407). In turned out in 1420. Some authors be- 

 parts of India, as I am informed by Mr. lieve that the island was discovered in 

 Blyth, they breed well. 1413. 



