348 
YERTEBRATA. 
rabbits are generally gregarious. The young of tlie rabbit are produced naked and blind, in 
which respects it is unlike the hare. 
Rabbits have been known from the earliest periods of history, and the first or earliest accounts 
which we have of them represent them as inhabiting the warm and sandy places of southern 
climates, especially those near the shores of the sea. We are informed by Pliny that Spain and 
Greece were those countries of Europe in which rabbits were first found ; and it is related both 
by him and Varro that an entire town in Spain was overturned by the incredible number of 
rabbits which lodged under its foundations ; and Strabo tells us that the people of the Balearic 
Islands, apprehensive that their conntry wonld be rendered desolate by the vast multiplication 
of these creatures, sent deputies to Rome, to implore military aid against this novel description 
of enemies. The Spaniards, in subsequent periods, thinned their numbers by means of ferrets, 
which they had imported from Africa. It is asserted by Spallanzani, that when the crops were 
wasted in Baziluzzo, one of the Lipari Islands, by an extraordinary increase of rabbits, the inhabi- 
tants had recourse to large importations of cats, which in a very short period of time entirely 
destroyed them. 
It is supposed that the species was originally confined to Africa, and was afterward diffused 
over the warmer and milder parts of Europe and Asia. It has found in its introduction to 
America a climate congenial to its constitution, and, in consequence, has very rapidly mul- 
tiplied, especially in the more tropical portions of that continent. It does not thrive in Swe- 
den in the open air,, but requires the warmth of confinement. When only five or six months 
old, rabbits are capable of breeding ; their term of gestation is thirty or thirty-one days, and a 
vigorous female will produce about eight young rabbits seven times in the course of a year ; so 
that in the course of four years her progeny, in theory, would amount to one million two hundred 
and seventy-four thousand eight hundred and forty individuals. But we cannot average, in the 
first instance, the amount of fertility at the maximum ; and, secondly, as we have observed in 
the history of the hare, the race is obnoxious to the attacks of men, and of various predaceous 
animals. 
If the dam does not find a hole suited to her purpose previously to her bringing forth, she 
digs one, not in a straight line, but in a zig-zag direction,, enlarging the bottom of it every way, 
and pulling from her OAvn body a quantity of hair, with which she makes a warm and comfortable 
bed for her young. The female during the two first days seldom if ever quits her young, unless 
when pressed by hunger,, at which time she eats with surprising quickness, and returns imme- 
diately. When she ventures- abroad, she covers up the hole very carefully, scarcely leaving any 
perceptible mark of it, and conceals her charge from the male lest he should devour them. She 
continues these attentions fox- about a month,, when the young are able to provide for themselves. 
She seeks to avoid all damp places, and prefers a light, sandy, dry soil to any other. 
The ordinary term of a rabbit's existence is from- seven to ten years. On a dead level it finds 
it difiicult to make its burrow, as, in such a situation, the mold must be thrown upward to the 
surface; whereas, on the side of an eminence, the declivity affords a ready fall for the earth. x\s 
the rabbits on the island of Sor, near Senegal, do not burrow, we are tempted to suspect that 
the digging of holes for themselves in colder climates is an acquired art, prompted by circum- 
stances. This conjecture will appear still more probable when we reflect that domestic rabbits 
never give themselves the trouble of digging, and that when a warren is attempted to be stocked 
with a domestic breed, they and their ofi"spring remain on the surface, and never begin to make 
holes for their protection until they have endured many hardships and passed through many 
generations. 
The wild rabbit we have been describing, called by the Erench Lapin de Garenne, is found in 
southern and central Europe, preferring elevated and rocky places, and being uniformly brown 
on the upper parts, with reddish spots behind the ears, and the lower parts whitish. The domestic 
kinds, agreeably to a law which applies to many other animals, are of various colors. In the 
English preserves these wild rabbits often multiply to a great extent, and sometimes they may be 
seen by hundreds sporting among the thickets, which are deemed their appropriate homes. Many 
of them often burrow near each other, such a collection being called a warren. Poachers take 
