The Leporide. 
267 
a leveret should be caught between twenty and thirty days old. 
when he can live without being suckled ; he should be kept 
with some young doe-rabbits of his own age, quite apart from 
any other animals : he will grow up' with them, but continue to 
be more shy than they. When they are of an age to breed, 
all the does, except one or two, should be withdrawn, and shortly 
these will be with young ; thev may then be removed and some 
of the others brought back. The hare will after this be gene- 
rally kept by himself, and the doe will be brought to him at 
night, when all is quiet, and a covering will be put over the bars 
of his hutch. 
It appears that the number of the young at a birth depends on 
the sire as well as on the dam : a doe-rabbit put to a hare, instead 
of rabbit, will bring forth five to eight, instead of eight to twelve 
young ones ; and again, as already stated, a buck hybrid of half- 
rabbit blood increased the numbers of the quadroon litter. This 
stock has now been kept up through some fourteen or fifteen 
generations, and in consequence of the pains which have been 
taken to avoid too much of breeding " in and in " they have 
not fallen off in size or appearance. 
M. Broca speaks of M. Roux as a gentleman who has no 
pretensions whatever to scientific knowledge, and yet reports that 
his whole account of the course of events tallies exactly with that 
which an enlightened physiologist, familiar with the laws of 
" Hyhridity" would have anticipated under the circumstances ; 
and this he considers to be in itself strong evidence of the truth 
and accuracy of his statements. 
If our readers who are breeders of stock, have had patience to 
proceed thus far, a word may suffice to point out to them that, 
whatever be their flock or herd, they have a personal interest in 
the broader features of this subject. Extreme cases are best 
qualified to throw a light upon the mysteries of cross-breeding, 
and to aid the investigation of the " laws of hybridity." The 
less the affinity, the broader the contrasts between the two 
parents, the more manifest and distinct will be the part which 
each plays in moulding the nature of the offspring. 
The hare and the rabbit are so little akin, that the idea of any 
fusion between them has been a stumbling-block to orthodox 
science. If we are satisfied that both the buck-rabbit and doe- 
hare, and also the buck-hare and doe-rabbit, have been successfully 
brought together, either of these two phases will be worthy of 
examination, and the one will illustrate the other. M. Roux's 
hybrids of different degrees, originating with the doe-rabbit, have 
all had white flesh, like that of the rabbit in colour, though different 
in flavour (Gagliari's, bred from the doe-hare, had red meat) ; their 
coat is said to resemble the hare in its texture, but its colour is 
VOL. XXV. U 
