IX 
WILD RABBITS 
203 
that in different parts of this one small island, different colours 
predominate. Round Mount Usborne, at a height of from 1000 
to 1500 feet above the sea, about half of some of the herds are 
mouse or lead coloured, a tint which is not common in other 
parts of the island. Near Port Pleasant dark brown prevails, 
whereas south of Choiseul Sound (which almost divides the island 
into two parts) white beasts with black heads and feet are the 
most common : in all parts black, and some spotted animals may 
be observed. Capt. Sulivan remarks that the difference in the 
prevailing colours was so obvious, that in looking for the herds 
near Port Pleasant, they appeared from a long distance like black 
spots, whilst south of Choiseul Sound they appeared like white 
spots on the hill-sides. Capt. Sulivan thinks that the herds do not 
mingle ; and it is a singular fact, that the mouse-coloured cattle, 
though living on the high land, calve about a month earlier in the 
season than the other coloured beasts on the lower land. It is 
interesting thus to find the once domesticated cattle breaking into 
three colours, of which some one colour would in all probability 
ultimately prevail over the others, if the herds were left undis¬ 
turbed for the next several centuries. 
The rabbit is another animal which has been introduced, and 
has succeeded very well ; so that they abound over large parts 
of the island. Yet, like the horses, they are confined within 
certain limits ; for they have not crossed the central chain of 
hills, nor would they have extended even so far as its base, if, as 
the Gauchos informed me, small colonies had not been carried 
there. I should not have supposed that these animals, natives of 
Northern Africa, could have existed in a climate so humid as 
this, and which enjoys so little sunshine that even wheat ripens 
only occasionally. It is asserted that in Sweden, which any one 
would have thought a more favourable climate, the rabbit cannot 
live out of doors. The first few pairs, moreover, had here to 
contend against pre-existing enemies, in the fox and some large 
hawks. The French naturalists have considered the black 
variety a distinct species, and called it Lepus Magellanicus. 1 
1 Lesson’s Zoology of the Voyage of the Coq^lille, tom. i. p. 168. All the early 
voyagers, and especially Bougainville, distinctly state that the wolf-like fox was the 
only native animal on the island. The distinction of the rabbit as a species is taken 
from peculiarities in the fur, from the shape of the head, and from the shortness of 
the ears. I may here observe that the difference between the Irish and English hare 
rests upon nearly similar characters, only more strongly marked. 
