Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 16.djvu/717

* RABBIT. 629 RABBIT. brown above, white beneath, and ordinarily held upright. The rabbit delights in sandy heaths, dry grounds, covered with scattered bushes, and similar situations, where it digs burrows in colonies called 'warrens.' It feeds mainly in the dusk of the morning and evening. It is monoga- mous, and wild pairs are said to remain attached during life, but in domestication it cea.ses to pair. The fertility of rabbits is proverbial. They be- gin to breed when six months old. and are capa- ble of producing several litters of five to eight young in a year, so that in favorable circum- stances they multiply with prodigious rapidity, and were they not killed off would inflict great injuiy upon crops, gardens, and orchards, espe- cially l)y barking young trees. The flesh of the European rabbit is excellent food, and the hides and hair may be made useful. They do not be- come a pest, and in some places not suited to agriculture are raised as a commercial product. This species is a native of the Western coun- tries on the Jlediterranean Sea, whence it has spread north in Europe. Its introduction and spread in Australasia furnishes an extraordinary example of the efl'ect which may follow nat- uralizing animals to a new country. About 1850 a gentleman living in Xew South Wales imported and turned loose three pairs of rabbits in that colony. They multiplied and flourished so rap- idly that they quickly became a public plague. In Xew Zealand, indeed, where the rabbit ob- tained a foothold about 187.5, it soon became a .serious question whether farmers should not abandon some districts altogether. In order to combat the plague, weasels and mungooses were e.xtensively introduced, but these made compara- tively little impression upon the hordes of rabbits, while they attacked the poultry, which was al- most the only article of farm produce the rabbits had left untouched. An attempt was made to ^ introduce epidemics of parasitic disease among the rabbits, but this also failed. The only way to meet the pest has been to erect around every garden or farm a rabbit-proof wire fence. An old English name for the rabbit is 'cony,' which has led to the application of this term in English versions of the Bible, and in common speech elsewhere, to quite different animals of small size and burrowing habits. In the United States the word is used interchangeably with hare — or, rather, replaces "Tiare' in popular speech, all the American wild species being called, rabbits, though none of them are truly of that species. Domestic Rjvbbit.s. There are ten well-estab- lished varieties of domesticated rabbits, the orig- inal stocks of which were derived from almost as many different countries. These are Angora, Belgian, Dutch, Himalayan, Lop. Siberian, Sil- ver-tip. Polish, and Flemish. Their characteris- tics are as diverse as their origin. They vary in color through every grade, shade, and mixture, from pure white to all black; in coat from the closest fur to long silky hair, capable of being woven ; in style of ears from the 'prick ear,' erect, small, and almost as stiff as metal, to the floppy, broad, soft-skinned ear of the lop, which hangs to the ground. The development of particular characteristics and markings, and their mainte- nance, are made possible by the animal's remark- able fecundity and adaptability. Their food is simple, a meal of whole oats in the early morn- ing, a mid-day meal of greens and vegetables. and an evening one of a mixture of cornmeal, bran, and oatmeal, kneaded in warm water, meets nearly all their requirements. They are good mothers, need no attention, and the less they are then disturbed, the better. The breeding-hutch nec- essarily requires an inner room, dark except for such light as goes through the little round door. In that box, or room, she will make her o^vn nest, and when her young have acquired their sight and fur ( about the eighteenth day ), they will come peeping out of the door. They should be taken away, one or two a day. when two months old. They can then run together until the fourth month, when the .sexes must be separated. The 'lop-ear' is the oldest variety of the fancy rabbit, having been bred from the English wild rabbit and shown in England considerably over a century. Its most marked feature is the abnor- mal ears, each 11 to 1"2 inches in length and 6 in width. The ears fall gracefully from behind the inner corner of the eye, with the convex sur- face outward; toward the root the ear is narrow and thick, and becomes abruptly broader and proportionately thinner toward the tip. The body in this breed is rather low at the shoulder, and there is a dewlap. The color varies, but the markings should be uniform. A large lop weighs II pounds. This is the only variety which re- quires artificial heat for its full development, and, although the oldest bleed, is so entirely arti- ficial that it is maintained and perfected only by the utmost care. The Belgian, although commonly called Bel- gian 'hare,' is a true rabbit. It is of large size (10 pounds), and lastrous sandy bro«Ti in color. Its body is longer in proportion to its weiglit than that of any other rabbit, and the hind legs are long, strong, and straight. The head is rather broad, tapering to the nose, the ear about five and a half inches long, thin and transparent, and the eye brown and bright. The flesh is excellent, and between 1895 and 1900 this rabbit was ex- tensively introduced into the Western United States. The Dutch rabbit, derived from Holland, is one of the smallest of the fancy breeds, not aver- aging above four pounds. Its hind quarters are solid black, or blue, or lemon, or, rarely, tortoise- shell, except the toes of the hind feet, which are white ; its forebody and fore legs are white ; it has a white nose and white blaze nar- rowing to a point on its face between the ears. Its ears, and the patch all round the eye and its side face, are the color of its hind quarters. The whole-color areas must be absolutely free from black or white hairs, and their borders clear and sharply defined. They are a very hardy race and excellent mothers. The Angora, a curious long- bodied rabbit, is a native of Asia Minor, and. like the Angora goat and cat. has a long silky coat, which is so long that it can be combed or clipped periodically, and the wool woven. The hair is all white in typical examples, though sometimes black or fawn, and of two lengths, the first woolly and short, the second long and hang- ing in semi-curls all over the body. WTien the wool is white the eye is pink ; in other varieties it shades accordingly. They average about nine pounds in weight, and are hardy. The Siberian rabbit, mainly bred in France, and very prolific, is a cross between the Angora and the Hima- layan, having the long, silky hair of the one and the dark points of the other. The Himalayan's