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Show 110 DOMESTIC RABBITS. CUAl'.IV . f d b orne sprinkled with silver-greys are bom black and a terwar 8 ec .t t d f d'. tly oppos1 e na ure, white. Exceptions, however, an o Fa nee I'lvcr-greys are occat:lionally oceur m. Lu o tb cases · 'or v• oun<Y0 s W B' . h f · . I bear from 1\fr. · uc ' 0 a sometimes born 111 warrens, a . 1 b . bl ·k } ('f animals ult1mate Y ccomc · ac · cream- ·olour, but t wse youno . d . · 'l,lte l[imabya.ns on the other hand, somctun es pro uee, as IS ' . t . 1a . 'ngle black youu('f one stat d by an cxpeneuced ama eur, a Sl "' • ~ . .. . l'tt .. but such before two months claps"", become per- Ill a 1 1., ' fectly white. . 'ld '1 . · 'To sum up the whole cunous .case: WJ SI.ver-gieys m~y be considered as black rabbits wluch become gl cy at a~ mly criocl of life. When they are crossed with common rabbits, the p rr · aid l'IOt to have blended colours, but to take after ou· sprwg are t s· d ·n this rcs1)ect they rcsem ble bl ac1 { an d mther paron ; an 1 . . . . •. a lbm. o van·e t'J CS of most quadrurJeds ' whiCh often transm1t tbe. u 1 co onrs m· tl · R"DlC manner When they arc crossed w1th llt:i ~ ... • 1 · ·1 '11· . tl1at I·s with a paler sub-variety, the young are at C UllC 1l a , ' . . fi t lL' 0 s but soon become dark-coloured m certam parts rs pure a um ' r '] of their bodies, and are then called l:{j mala~ans. l1c young H1. ma1 a yans, 11 o "" 'cver , arc sometimes a.t first either . pal e grey . or l t l bl ck in either ca e changmg after a time to w bite. comp e c y a ' : . 1 a future chapter I shall advance a large body of facts sho"mg t;~at, when two varieties are crossed both of which d~ffer in colour from their pa.rcnt-stock, there is a strong tcndcn:y m the young to revert to the aboriginal colour; and what IS very _remarkaLlc this reversion occasionally supervenes, not before Luth, but duri~o· the growth of the animal. Hence, if it could be shown that ~ilver-greys and chinchillas were the offspring ?f .a cross b tween a black and albino variety with the colours mtimate1y blended-a supposition in itself not improbable, and suppo_rted by the circumstance of silver-gr~ys in. warrens sometimes producing creamy-white young, wh~ch ultuuately become black -then all the above-given paradoxiCal facts on the changes of colour in silvcr-oTcys and in their descendants the Himalayans would come und ~· the law of reversion, supervening at different periods of growth and in different degrees? either to the original black or to the original albino parent-vanety. ~~ 'PltunomctlOII in Himalayan Rabbit:;,' in ' Journal of Horliculturc,' 1865, Jan. 27t.h, p. 102. C IIAL' . IV. FERAL RABBITS. 111 lt is, also, remarkable that Himalayans, though produced so suddenly, brood true. But as, whilst young, they arc albinoes, the case falls under a very general rule ; for albinism is well known to l>c strongly inhei·itcd, as with white mice and manv other quadrup ds, and oven with white flowers. But why, i.t may be asked, do the caTs, tail, nose, and feet, and no oth r part of tho body, revert to a black colour? 1'bis apparently depends on a law, which generally holds good, namely, that characters common to many species of a genus-and this, in fttet: implies long inheritance in common from the ancient pro? emtor of tho genus-are found to resist variation, or to reappear If lost, more persistently than the charactcTs which are confin~ d ~o the eparate.species. Now, in the genus Lepus, a large maJor~ty ?f the spomes have their ears and the upper surface of the tml tmted Llu.ck; but the persistence of these marks is best seen in' those species which in winter become white: thus, in Scotland the L. variabilis 19 in its winter dress has a shade of colouT on its nose, and the tips of its cars arc black : in the L. tibetanus the cars are black, tho uppcl' smfacc of the tail greyishblack, and the solos of the feet brown : in L. glacialis the winter fur is pure white, except the solos of the feet and the points of the eaTs. Even in the v~riously-coloured fancy Tabhits we may o!ten observe a tendency m these same parts to be more darkly tmted than the I'est of the body. Thus, as it seems to me the appe_aranc~ of the sevei~al coloured marks on the Himal~yan rabbit, as It grows old, Is rendered intelligible. I may add a nearly analogous case : fancy rabbits very often have a white star on their foreheads; and the common English hare, whilst young, ¥enerally has, as I have myself observed, a similar white star on Its forehead. When variously coloured rabbits are set free in Europe, and are thus placed u~d~r their natural conditions, they generally revert to the ab?ngmal grey colour ; this may be in part due ~o the tende~cy I~ all _crossed animals, as lately observed, to Ievert to th~1r pl'lmo~dial state. But this tenclency does not always prevail; thus silver-grey rabbits are kept in warrens and remain true though living almost in a state of nature; but a 19 G. R. WaterhousC', ' Natural History of Mammalia: Rodents ' 1846 11p 52 60, 105. • • 0 ' |