March, 1923 
The Queensland Naturalist. 
9 
are still jiroceediiig in the United States of America, 
the main and most ])ermanent ones being caused by 
man (1, p. 20). Burroughs tells us ‘^the rabbit is now 
common in parts of our State (New York) where in my 
boyhood only the hare was found” (8. p. 38). 
Rabbits have been subjected to Hiiudi abuse by reason 
of their unpardonable interference with the monetary 
interests of man, but it shn'uld be remembered that the 
balance is not wholly on the one side. It has been said 
(9, p. 182), timt man learned sapping and mining from 
the burrowing habit of these little rodents. Be this, is 
it may, in Dr. Johnson’s' Rasse/as'" (Chap, xiii.) the 
Prince' and his companion find their way out of the Happy 
Valley by obs'erving and imitating rabbits at their work 
of delving into the earth. Rabbits have been used for 
food by man from tlie earliest times. In the British 
Mnseuni may be seen a bronze figure of a yotive hare 
with an tonic inscription of abo'ut B.C. 480, and this 
animal was commonly hunted by the ancient Egyptians. 
Among the Romans the ’Uiare-Avarren” or leporariutu 
was often an appendage of the farm, and Varro tells 
US' (2, p. 313) that its ‘‘boundary walls should^ have 
a coating of plaster and .should be high” as a protection 
against natural enemies, and he adds: ‘‘There ij.^ also 
the recent fashion, now general, of fattening them by 
taking them from the warren, shutting them u]^ in cages, ■ 
and fattening them in confinement.” Alexander Severus’* 
is said to have had a hare served daily at his table (10, ' 
P- 62). I 
According to Pliniy, the Romans also found medicinal i 
virtues in the “hare.” The rennet was used as an in- 1; 
gredient in antidotes for pois'ons and was prescribed for i, 
fevers. It was also injected into the eai‘ as a remedy for ; 
tooth-ache. The ashes of a bai'e, wi.h oil of myrtle , 
added, reC'eved headache, the patient drinking s-OTiie ' 
water left in a trough after an ox or an ass had been | 
drinking there. The ashes of the bead made a good 
tooth powder, and with the addition of nard was a j 
corrective of bad breath (3, Vol. V., pp. 333. 335, 339, 
355). I 
In Britain during the Saxon period, rabbits formed 
part of the food of the people (10, p. 64), and as we ; 
come down the ages we find numerous references to their 
H 
t: 
* A.D. 209-235, 
