. The popular natural history . Zoology. THE RABBIT. S49 permanent varieties, which would be considered as different species by one who saw them for the first time. The burrows in which the Rabbit lives arc extremely irregular in their construction, and often communicate with each other to a remarlcable extent. From many of its foes the Rabbit escapes by diving suddenly into its burrow ; but there are some animals, such as the stoat, weasel, and ferret, which follow it into its subterranean abode and slay it within the precincts of its own home. When the female Rabbit is about to become a moth
. The popular natural history . Zoology. THE RABBIT. S49 permanent varieties, which would be considered as different species by one who saw them for the first time. The burrows in which the Rabbit lives arc extremely irregular in their construction, and often communicate with each other to a remarlcable extent. From many of its foes the Rabbit escapes by diving suddenly into its burrow ; but there are some animals, such as the stoat, weasel, and ferret, which follow it into its subterranean abode and slay it within the precincts of its own home. When the female Rabbit is about to become a mother, she quits the ordinary burrows, and digs a special tunnel for the purpose of sheltering her young family during their first few weeks of life. At the extremity of the burrow she places a large quantity of dried herbage intermixed with down which she plucks from her own body, so as to make a soft and warm bed for the expected occupants. The young Rabbits are about seven or eight in. RABBIT.—{Lepus cunlculus.) number, and are born without hair and with their eyes closed. Not until they have attained the age of ten or twelve days are they able to open their eyelids and to see the world into which they have been brought. Rabbits are terribly destructive animals, as is too well known to all residents near a warren, and are sad depredators in field, garden, and plantation, destroying in very wantonness hundreds of plants which they do not care to eat. They do very great damage to young trees, delighting in stripping them of the tender bark as far as they can reach while standing on their hind feet. Sometimes they eat the bark, but in many cases they leave it in heaps upon the ground, having chiselled it from the tree on which it grew, and to which it afforded nourishment, merely for the sake of exercising their teeth and keep- ing them in proper order, just as a cat delights in clawing the legs of chaiss and tables. In its native state the fur of the Rabbit is nearly uniform br
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectzoology, bookyear1884
