be shown to exist
from the largest domestic kinds, having enormously developed ears, 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.[252] 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
ground. From these several reasons we may infer with safety that all the
domestic breeds are the descendants of the common wild species. But from
what we hear of the late marvellous success in rearing hybrids between the
hare and rabbit,[253] it is possible, though not probable, from the great
difficulty in making the 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 skeletons 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 Rouennais, and has a square head; the so-called
Patagonian rabbit has remarkably short ears and a large round head.
Although I have not seen all these breeds, I feel some doubt about there
being any marked difference in the {106} shape of their skulls.[254]
English lop-eared rabbits often weigh 8 lbs. or 10 lbs., and one has been
exhibited weighing 18 lbs.; whereas a full-sized wild rabbit weighs only
about 31/4 lbs. The head or skull in all the large lop-eared rabbits examined
by me is much longer relatively to its breadth than in the wild rabbit.
Many of them have