854 The Gray Rabbit (Lepus sylvaticus). [November, 



because that change is more rapid in some localities than in 

 others, but it is an interesting fact that this Calaveras skull is 

 more thoroughly fossilized, a greater proportion of its phosphate 

 of lime has become carbonate than in either of the European 

 specimens which are reckoned of the greatest age. 



We seem then fairly entitled to consider the Ancient Man of 

 Calaveras the oldest representative of our race to which we can 

 as yet refer ; and being such, is he of a bestial type ? Look for 

 yourself. Figures have been published by Professor Whitney 

 in his work. What is there bestial as shown by them ? A single 

 skull cannot, of course, speak for a whole race, but so far as this 

 specimen can testify, what man is now, man was then. It mani- 

 fests no sign of inferiority to the American race as now existing. 

 Barbarous in habit he doubtless may have been. All the relics 

 of workmanship thus far discovered of those coeval with him, in- 

 dicate a low grade of civilization, and yet one not necessarily 

 much, if at all, lower than that of most of the Indian tribes 

 which formerly occupied the entire breadth of the continent. 

 And in intellectual power, judging from his cerebral development, 

 he might assuredly have claimed a fair average rank. 



THE GRAY RABBIT (LEPUS SYLVATICUS). 



k BIT of odd, yet attractive innocence is the wild rabbit of 

 ■**• Europe. I cannot say as much for its descendant, that pie- 

 bald and lop-eared pet of my boyhood. All endearment died out 

 at sight of the pampered old buck killing his own offspring from 

 sheer wantonness ; then came implacable dislike on seeing the 

 doe eating one of her little babies. The domesticated rabbit 

 gains nothing intellectually over its wild ancestor, but becomes 

 emotionally unnatural, if not pathologically unsound. The tamed 

 gray squirrel will lose the sexual instinct to the extent that it be- 

 comes degenerated into or absorbed by a morbid appetite so en- 

 grossing that the male will suck at one place on the tail of 

 his mate, until he has nearly severed that member. Something 

 not unlike is seen in the stallion of high strain, when biting the 

 neck of the mare in the fervency of his passion. At the best, 

 under domestication, the rabbit, like the guinea pig, Cavia cobaia, 

 with its rabbit-like head and face, gets simply coddled into a 



