TRANSLATIONS FROM CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 553 
its skin, and for which it is used for a special pur¬ 
pose. The leporide is not the counterpart of the hare 
and the rabbit, but, like the chabin, forms a well-defined, 
separate, and distinct breed; we might almost say a 
separate species, possessing its proper merits, the most 
valuable of which is, without doubt, the faculty of trans¬ 
mitting them to their posterity, being, as they are, endowed 
with an almost unlimited fecundity. The natural history of 
the hare and the rabbit is so well known that it is unne¬ 
cessary to give it here; we will only remind our readers that 
these species have a great antipathy to each other, and agree 
very badly when kept together in the same place, and that 
the rabbit pursues and chases the hare so vigorously that he 
completely drives him from the locality where the former 
breeds, and there is no instance of their ever having bred 
together in a wild state. Paying no attention to this incom¬ 
patibility of character, endeavours have been made by man 
to cross the hare with the rabbit and the rabbit with the 
hare, but, notwithstanding all the care taken to obtain a 
favorable result, Buffon, the naturalist, completely failed. 
Some others have not been more successful; young animals 
of both species have been brought up together under the 
most favorable condition as to success; they agreed tole¬ 
rably up to the time of puberty, but the rutting time was 
the critical point; male and female then fought desperately 
until the weakest succumbed. Two or three successful 
results have, however, been reported, more or less authen¬ 
ticated, but they have been rare and isolated, and are no 
proof of a regular production having been obtained. How r - 
ever important to science, these facts have very little interest 
in a practical point; we can, therefore, pass them over, and 
come at once to the production of the leporide by M. Alf. 
Roux, President of the Agricultural Society of Charente. 
The first essays of this ingenious breeder date from 1847 ; 
in 1850 he had obtained results which fixed with certainty 
this curious product between the hare and the rabbit, and 
which promises to be of great benefit in an alimentary point 
of view 7 . It is by the male hare and the female rabbit that the 
leporide has been produced by M. Roux. Now 7 , the greatest 
difficulty is in the rearing of the male in a state of domes¬ 
ticity. The preference was given to the rabbit as the dam, 
on account of its fecundity, the hare being found to be often 
sterile in the state of captivity, even w hen living with its ow n 
male; on the other hand, the hare is less prolific, and the 
gestations are at greater distances; the produce of the latter 
is less numerous than that of the rabbit; moreover, the 
XXXVTl. 36 
