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Show 104. DOMESTIC RAB13ITS. CuAT•. IV . 't "you shall not, as in ln 1631 G orva1·s o Markh.a m wn os, 1 1_ t t their richnosse, one Y 11 1 1- to then· shape, uu 0 • other cattc ' oo -.o d dliest comes you ca1 1 elect your buckes, the largo: t an l}oo that is accounted the ()'et. and for the n· ·1 m es se of the s .- .mt , ·e of blacke and wh I' to o ' . h tl oquallest mlx ur . l richest wluch hat 10 h . 1 dowino· the white ; t te . . t th blaclw rat er s la o . . han·o togethm, yo . o e smooth, and slllnmg; ..... furro should be thu:ke, deep ' d 1· or and when another 1. d h fatter an arg ' ' . · , they arc of uo y muc th are worth two shillmgs. . tl t o or throe ponce, ey b' . t l skin Ii:l w. orf 111 dw c 'I.p ti.O n we see tl1 a t si l ver-grey rab Its exis oc From this u es 1 c1 h t ·s .!':ar more important, we h. . d . an w a I 1' in England at t IS pcrJO ' 1 ~ f ·abbits was then carefully b d · g or se ectwn o I • . soc that the ree m di . 1637 describes on the authonty attended to. Aldrovan ' ISn 1' ' . 1557) 'rabbits of various d 't (as ca IO'er, m ' of several ol w" nn ers , 0 d 1 dds that P. Valerianus a hare, an 1e a . . colours, some 1m . 1;.;58) saw at Verona rabbrts fom (who died a very old man m D times bigger t~lan ofm·s1.2 . bb't havin()' been domesticated at all .,, . the fact o t 1e ra 1 0 · f th .1. I om . t loolr to the northern hemisphere o E aneient penod, we mus '" t er·ate regions alone, for the ld d t tho warmer emp Old Wor ' an o. Jo • tl ·abbit cnnnot live without pro· 1. • · 1 arent-form ; ror le 1 . auon· gm·a P tri.e s as co ld as S we clen ' and though Jt has rmt ~ ' tactiOn m coun . . 't has never greatly mul-wild in tho tropical island of Jamawa, 1 . t a 'n the . . . It now exists, and has long oxis e ' 1 tiphed . theie. t ·ts of Europe, for fossil remains have boon wanner tempera o pm_ s e domestic rabbit readily becomes found in several conntnes.. Th . h .· ly coloured kinds feral in these same couu.trJcs: ~nd :v::t v~~JO~~e ordinary grey ·tre tmned out they genera y . t d <. l 4 The wild rabbits, if taken young, can be domestiCa. e ' co our. bl 5 The varwus though the process is generally very trou esomo. 2 U. Aldrovandi, 'De Quo.drupc,]i~us Jigitn,tis,' 1637, p. 383. For ~onfuems o.ncl 0. Mo.rkhmn, see a wntcr who has studied tlie snbjcct, in 'Cotto.go Gardener,' J an. 22nd, 1861, p. 25(1. ' :1 Owen, • British Fossil Mammals, p. 212. • 4 • P i.,.oons and Rrtbbits,' by E. S. Dclamc~. 1 54, p. 133. ~ir ~- Sobright ('Observations on lnstmet, 1836 •. ~· 10) speaks most stron ~l y on tho ulfh-culty. But this difficulty is not invarinble as I have received two nccounts of pcrfc~t success in ta~ing and ~reed.' ing from the wild mbbtt. See ~l so ~~; P. Broca, in 'J oumal do la Phy~wlogw, tom. ii. p. 368. 1 s Bcchstcin, ' Naturgcsch. Doutsc 1· lands' 1 01, b. i. P· 1133. I ho.vo recei~ecl similnr nccounts with respect to Enghtnd and Scotland. C HAP. IV. THEIR VARIATION. 105 domestic races are often crossed, and are believed to be perfectly ff:n·tilo together, and a perfect gradation can be shown to exist from tho largest domestic kinds, having enormously developed oars, to the common wild kind. The parent-form must have been a burrowing animal, a habit not common, as far as I can discover, to any other species in the large genus Lepus. Only one wild species is known with certainty to exist in Europe ; but the rabbit (if it be a true rabbit) from Mount Sinai, and likewise that from Algeria, present slight differences; and these forms have been considered by some authors as specifically distinct. 6 But such slight differences ·would aid us little in explaining the more considerable differences characteristic of the several domestic races. If the latter are the descendants of two or more closely allied species, all, excepting the common rabbit, have been exterminated in a wild state ; and this is very improbable, seeing with what pertinacity this animal holds its g:cound. From these several reasons we may infer with safety that all the <..lomestic breeds are the descendants of tho common wild species. But from what we hear of the late marvellous success in rearing hybrids between the hare and rabbit, 7 it is possible, though not probable, from the gr at difficulty in making tho first cross, that some of the larger races, which are coloured like the hare, may have been modified by crosses with this animal. Nevertheless, the chief differences in the Elkeletons of the several domestic breeds cannot, as we shall presently see, have been derived from a cross with the hare. There are many breeds which transmit their characters more or less truly. Every one has seen the enormous lop-eared rabbits exhibited at our shows ; various allied sub-breeds are reared on the Continent, such as the so-called Andalusian, which is said to have a large head with a round forehead, and to attain a greater size than any other kind; another large Paris breed is named the Houennais, and bas a sqnare head; the so-called Patagonian rabbit bas remarkably short ears and a large round bead. Although I have not seen all these breeds, I feel some doubt about there being any marked difference in the 6 Gervais, 'Hist. Nat. des Mammiferes; tom. i. p. 292. 7 See Dr. P. Broca's intcrosting mo-moir on this subject in Brown-Sequard's 'Journ. de Phys.,' vol. ii. p. 367. |