FANCY RABBITS.-CHOI ^ OF STOCK. 77 
to feed, sitting at the entrance of their holes, cleaning their faces with their 
lore-paws, and darting into their burrows on the slightest alarm. 
COMMON ‘WILD RABBIT. 
Rabbit-lceeping is in general a sufficiently simple affair. As with all pet 
animals, regularity in attending to the little creatures’ wants, and care of 
them during sickness, are most necessary to insure success. 
FANCY RABBITS. 
The fancy rabbits bear various names, of which the most common are 
the smut, the double smut, the lop, the dew-lop, the oar-lop, the horn-lop, 
and some others. These occasionally fetch very high prices among fanciers; 
but we would warn our young friends against expensive habits of every 
kind, and especially against expensive rabbit-keeping; Animals kept for 
amusement, and also for instruction—for much is to be learned of the in¬ 
stinct and habits of animals from familiar acquaintance with them—should 
be such as incur little expense beyond what a lad can spare from his own 
pocket-money; and the habit of seeking assistance from parents for foolish 
fancies is pregnant with the greatest mischief. We should, therefore, 
strenuously advise our young friends not to waste their time and money 
upon those ugly, overgrown creatures which fanciers choose to designate 
as beautiful, but to confine their attention to the rearing of the finest, most 
perfect, and purest stock of rabbits that can be produced, and therewith to 
be content. 
According to fanciers, when one ear grows up straight and the other lops 
over the shoulder, it is a great thing, and when the two ears grow over the 
nose, so that the poor creature cannot see (as in the horn-lop), or when both 
ears stick out of each side horizontally (as in the oar-lop), or when the hol¬ 
lows of the ears are turned out so completely that the covered part appears 
in front (as in the perfect-lop), these peculiarities are considered as marks 
of varied degrees of perfection, but to unsophisticated minds they present 
nothing but monstrosities; we can see no beauty in such enormities, and 
shall no further describe or allude to them. (See Engraving at the head of 
this article.) 
CHOICE OF STOCK. 
With regard to color, rabbits nearest in color to the wild ones are, in gene¬ 
ral, the most hardy; after the black or black and white, then the white* 
