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



our gray rabbit, one which had been caught without harm in a 

 trap. Attempting to toy with it, he received on his hand a smart 

 blow from both hind feet of the affrighted little prisoner, which 

 inflicted quite a scratch, on which he exclaimed : " Sure, Master, 

 'an is this why you called that ass an American rabbit ? Troth, 

 and the little baste does kick like a mule. But I should never 

 take it for a rabbit. At home we would call it a young hare." 

 Probably it would have bothered this sensible man, had he been 

 told that there was in America a hare known as the " great jack- 

 Still, William was right every time. The gray rabbit is a hare; 

 and our opening paragraph is applicable only to the true Euro- 

 pean rabbit, Lepus auriculas. The word rabbit then simply denotes 

 a species of the genus Lepus, of which the word hare is the gen- 

 eric expression in the English and some of the continental lan- 

 guages. Though possessing several species of hare, America does 

 not include the true rabbit. Passing by certain real distinctions 

 of form, let us notice some striking differences of habit. The 

 cony is a true burrower, and lives in communities. The hare is 

 solitary and, as a rule, does not burrow, though sometimes found 

 occupying an abandoned burrow of some other animal, like the 

 so-called burrowing-owl, Athene cunicularia, which occupies the 

 deserted burrows of the prairie dog, Cynomys hidovicianus. Then 

 the rabbit, like the guinea pig, brings forth its little ones full- 

 haired and open-eyed ; but the young hare comes into being 

 nearly naked and quite blind, altogether a very helpless thing. 

 However, the popular voice has fairly got the start of science in 

 this matter, and as the " gray rabbit " it will be always known. 

 The truth is the systematists got things so badly mixed that not 

 until recently did this very common animal have a scientific name 

 of its own. Peter Kalm, the Swedish botanist, for whom Linne 

 named our beautiful Kalmia, published at Stockholm his Travels 

 in North America, 3 vols., 1753-61. Here is the earliest book 

 allusion to the little hare, and it is referred to as inhabiting New 

 Jersey. But the first carefully-worked-out diagnosis of the spe- 

 cies, was made by John David Schoepf, who in 1783 wrote an 

 accurate scientific description of it in New York, which he pub- 

 lished the year following in Germany. What is strange and un- 

 fortunate, he did not give it a systematic name, but simply called 

 it, " Der Nord-Americanische Haase ;" and some of the system- 



