126 



DOMESTIC RABBITS 



Chap. F> t - 



Consequenily I examined skulls of the hare, but no light could thus 

 be thrown on the peculiarities of the skulls of the larger rabbits. 

 It is, however, an interesting fact, as illustrating the law that 

 varieties of one species often assume the characters of other species 

 of the same genus, that I found, on comparing the skulls of ten 

 species of hares in the British 3Iuseum, that they differed from each 

 other chiefly in the very same points in which domestic rabbits 

 vary, — namely, in general proportions, in the form' and size of the 

 subra-orbital plates, in the form of the free end of the malar bone, 

 and in the line of suture separating the occipital and frontal bones. 

 Moreover two eminently variable characters in the domestic rabbit, 

 namely, the outline of the occipital foramen and the shape of the 

 "raised platform" of the occiput, were likewise variable in two 

 instances in the same species of hare. 



Vertebrae. — The number is uniform in all the skeletons which I 

 have examined, with two exceptions, namely, in one of the small 

 feral Porto Santo rabbits and in one of the largest lop-eared kinds ; 

 both of these had as usual seven cervical, twelve dorsal with ribs, 

 but, instead of seven lumbar, both had eight lumbar vertebrae. 

 This is remarkable, as Gervais gives seven as the number for the 

 whole genus Lepus. The caudal vertebras apparently differ by 

 two or three, but I did not attend to them, and they are difficult to 

 count with certainty. 



In the first cervical vertebra, or atlas, the anterior margin of the 

 neural arch varies a little in wild specimens, being either nearly 

 smooth, or furnished with a small supra-median atlantoid process; 



I have figured a specimen with the 

 largest process (a) which I have seen ; 

 but it will be observed how inferior 

 this is in size and different in shape 

 to that in a large lop-eared rabbit. 

 In the latter, the infra-median pro- 

 cess i b) is also proportionally rnuc]i 

 thicker and longer. The alaa are a 

 little squarer in outline. 



Third cervical vertebra. — In the 

 wild rabbit (fig. 13, a a) this ver- 

 tebra, viewed on the inferior surface, 

 has a transverse process, which is 

 directed obliquely backwards, and 

 consists of a single pointed bar ; in 

 the fourth vertebra this process is 

 slightly forked in the middle. In the 

 large lop-eared rabbits this process 

 (b a ) is forked in the third vertebra, 

 as in the fourth of the wild rabbit. 

 But the third cervical vertebras of 

 the wild and lop-eared (a b, b I) 

 rabbits differ more conspicuously when their anterior articular 



Fiji. 12. — Atlas Vertebrae, of natural size ; 

 inferior surface viewed obliqu I v. 

 Upper figure, Wild Rabbit. l.ower 

 figure, Hare- coloured, large, 1. 



'•it. a, supra-median, atlantoid 

 38 ; b, infra-median p 



