Chapter III: Part 3

As the female goes only five months and a half with young, and as the growth of the fawn is more rapid than that of the young stag, so is his life much shorter; and I do not believe it ever extends beyond twelve or fifteen years. I have reared several, but could never keep any above five or six years. They are very delicate in choosing their food, require much air, exercise, and space to range in, which is the reason they cannot sustain the inconveniences of a domestic life, but in their younger years; for a roe-buck to live at his ease and comfortable, he must be supplied with a female and a park of at least an hundred acres to range in. They may be tamed, but can never be rendered obedient or familiar; they always retain somewhat of their wild nature, are easily terrified, and will then run against a wall with such force as sometimes to break their legs. However tame they may be, they are not to be trusted, for the bucks are apt to adopt many caprices; they will take an aversion to particular persons, and run at them with their horns with a force sufficient to knock a man down, and having done so, they will continue to trample on him with their feet. The roe-buck does not cry so frequently, nor with so strong a voice as the stag. The young ones have a short and plaintive cry, their note being _mi, mi_; which they generally use when they are in want of food. This note is easily imitated, and by using it the dams may be brought to the very muzzle of the hunter's gun.

The roe-bucks remain in winter in the thickest coppices and feed on briars, broom, heath, &c. In spring they repair to the more open brush-wood, and browze upon the buds and young leaves of almost every tree: this warm food, fermenting in their stomachs, inebriate them to such a degree that they are then easily surprised; for they know not whither they go; frequently come out of the woods, will approach flocks of cattle, and even the habitations of men. In summer they inhabit the more lofty coppices, from which they seldom issue, except in extreme heats to drink at some cool fountain; for when the dew lies in quantities, or the leaves are moistened with rain, they never drink. They select the choicest kinds of aliment, being extremely delicate in their eating, neither feeding with the same indifference nor avidity as the stag, and seldom approaching cultivated ground. The flesh of these animals is excellent food, yet there is much distinction to be made in the choice of the venison. The quality depends greatly upon the country in which they have lived; although in the most plentiful, both good and bad are to be found. The flesh of the brown roe-buck is more delicate than that of the red: that of those which have passed the second year is tough and ill-tasted, while that of the females, though further advanced in years, is more tender. Those which are bred in plains and valleys are not good; those from moist lands still worse; there is but little taste in those reared in parks, and, in a word, there are no good roe-bucks but those which have inhabited dry and elevated countries, interspersed with little hills, woods, arable lands and streams, where they have a sufficiency of good air, food, freedom, and above all, solitude; for such as have been often disturbed are thin, and the flesh of those which have been frequently hunted previously, is tasteless and insipid.

This species, which is not so numerous as that of the stag, and seldom found in many parts of Europe, is much more abundant in America, where there are but two sorts; the red, which are large, and a brown one considerably smaller, which has a white spot behind; and as they are found both in the northern and southern parts of America, it is probable that they differ more from each other than from those in Europe. In Louisiana[H] they are extremely common, and are larger than those in France. They are also found in Brasil; for the animal which is there called _Cujuacu-apara_, differs not more from the European roe-buck, than the Canadian stag from ours. There is only some little variation in the form of the horns. "In Brasil, says Piso, there are two sorts of the roe-buck, one of which has no horns, and is called the _Cujuacu-été_, and the other is furnished with horns, and is called _Cujuacu-apara_. The horned ones are much less than the others; their hair is smooth, glossy, and a mixture of brown and white, when they are young, but the white is lost as they advance in years. The hoof is divided into two black toes, upon each of which there appears to be grafted another and smaller one; the tail is short, the eyes large and black, the nostrils open, the horns are of a middling size, and fall off annually. The females go five or six months with their young;" and another author adds, "that their horns are divided into three branches, and that the lowest branch is the longest, and divides into two." We may fairly conclude from the above descriptions, that the _apara_ is a variety of the species of the roe-buck; and Ray supposes that the _Cujuacu-été_ and the _Cujuacu-apara_ are both of the same species, and that one is the male and the other the female. I should acquiesce in this opinion, if Piso had not expressly stated, that those which have horns are smaller than the others; for it does not appear probable that the females should be so much larger than the males, when in every other place the contrary is the case. At the same time, although the _Cujuacu-apara_ may be nothing more than a variety of our roe-buck, to which the _capreolus marinus_ of Johnson may be added, I cannot pretend to determine with respect to the _Cujuacu-été_, at least until we have received more certain information.

[H] They make great use of the flesh of the roe-buck in Louisiana; it is larger here than in Europe, and has horns like the stag, but differs from it in its hair and colour; the inhabitants use it the same as other people do mutton.

SUPPLEMENT.

In my original work I remarked, that wild animals were generally either white, brown, or grey; and that such as fallow-deer, rabbits, &c. became white, from being kept in a domestic state, but M. l'Abbé de la Viletta, in a letter dated June 17, 1773, informs me, that they are sometimes so in their natural state; for a man belonging to his brother, who had an estate near Orgelet, in Franche-comté, brought home two old roe-deers, one of which was of the common colour, and the other a female perfectly white, having only black hoofs, and a black spot at the end of her nose.

M. de Fontenelle, the king's physician, at New Orleans, in a letter to me, says, that roe-bucks are very common in North America, that they entirely resemble those of Europe, except being somewhat larger, particularly in Louisiana, where he thinks they are nearly as big again as those in France. He says they are very easily tamed, as does M. Kalm, who asserts, that he had a roe-buck which went every day to the woods, and returned to his house regularly every night. According to M. de la Borde, there are four kinds of stags at Cayenne, indiscriminately called hinds, whether males or females. "The first are called wood, or red hinds, which constantly inhabit the thickest part of the forests. The second, which are bigger, though of the same colour, are called the barallou hind; both of these species have two considerable glands on each side of the nostrils, containing a white foetid humour. The third is called the Savanna hind, which is of a grey colour, and more common than either of the others; neither are they so large, though their horns are longer and more branched: they are called Savanna hinds, because they seek out the lands covered with marshes; they feed upon the manioc, and are very destructive to plantations. Their flesh is excellent food, and far preferable to that of European stags. They are so tame at Cayenne, that they run about the streets, and go in and out of town without discovering the smallest degree of apprehension. The females are said even to go into the woods after wild males, and to return again when they have got fawns. The last is called the caricou; he is less than either of the others, his colour is a light grey, and his horns are straight and pointed. He keeps himself entirely to large woods, and never ventures near parts that are inhabited; they are, nevertheless, very easily rendered tame and familiar; and the females produce but one fawn at a time." Notwithstanding the stress which has been laid upon these remarks, I am of opinion, that all these pretended species of stags or hinds, as above described, are merely varieties of the roe-buck, which are more numerous in the new than in the old continent, and which I apprehend will fully appear to such as compare those descriptions with our history of the mazame, or Mexican deer.

THE HARE.[I]

[I] In French _le lievre_; in Greek [Greek: lagôs]; in Latin _lepus_; in Italian _lepre_; Spanish _liebre_; Portuguese _lebre_; German _hase_; Swedish _hare_; Dutch _hase_; Polish _lajonz_.

The species of animals which are most numerous are not the most useful. Nothing can be more noxious than the multitudes of rats, mice, locusts, caterpillars, and many other insects, of which it would seem that Nature rather admitted than ordained the extraordinary increase. But those of the hare and rabbit are advantageous to us both from the number and utility. Hares are abundantly spread over the face of the earth; and rabbits, though originally natives of particular climates, multiply so prodigiously in almost every place to which they are transported, that instead of being extirpated, no small art is required in order to diminish their too-often inconvenient number. When we reflect on the astonishing fecundity of each particular species, on the quick and prodigious multiplication of certain animals which come into existence, as it were, to desolate the fields and ravage the earth, we are astonished they do not oppress Nature with their numbers, and after having devoured her productions become themselves victims to the destruction they have made. We cannot view without terror those thick clouds, those winged phalanxes of famished insects which seem to menace the whole globe, and whether lighting on the fruitful plains of Egypt, or of India, in an instant destroy the labours and hopes of a whole people; and sparing neither grain, fruit, herbs, nor leaves, strip the earth of its verdue, and change the richest countries into barren desarts. We behold rats descending from the northern mountains, in innumerable multitudes, rushing like a deluge of living matter, overflow the plains, spread themselves over the southern provinces, and after having destroyed in their passage every thing that lives, or vegetates, finish their career with infecting the earth and air with their putrid carcasses. We behold in the southern regions myriads of ants issuing from the desarts, which, like an exhaustless torrent, arrive in thick and successive columns, take possession of every spot, drive away men and animals from their habitations, and never retire till they have caused a general devastation. And in those times when man himself was but half civilized, and subject to all the laws and even excesses of Nature, were there not similar inundations of the human species? Have there not been Normans, Huns, and Goths, whole nations, or rather tribes of animals bearing the human form without dwellings, and without distinction, who have suddenly rushed from their caves, and marched in tumultuous herds, and without any force but what consists in numbers, overthrown empires, destroyed nations, and having ransacked the earth, concluded by repeopling it with a race not less barbarous than themselves?

These æras, these great events, though so strongly marked in the History of Mankind, are yet only slight vicissitudes in the ordinary course of animated nature, which is in general always uniform and the same; its movements are regulated by two unchangeable wheels; the one, unbounded fecundity of every species; the other, the innumerable causes of destruction which are perpetually reducing the produce of that fecundity to a determinate measure, so as to preserve nearly the same number of individuals in each species. And as these multitudinous animals, which appear suddenly, disappear in the same manner, without augmenting their race, so does the human species always remain the same; the variations only are more slow, because the life of man being longer than that of small animals, the alternate changes of increase and diminution must necessarily require a greater portion of time. But time itself is only an instant in the succession of ages, and only strikes us the more forcibly, from having been accompanied with horror and destruction; for, taking all the inhabitants of the globe together, the number of the human race, like that of other animals, will, at all times, appear to be nearly the same; as this depends entirely upon an equilibrium of physical causes, an equilibrium to which every thing has long been reduced, and which neither the efforts of man, nor any moral circumstances whatever, can dissolve; those circumstances themselves being dependant on physical causes. Whatever care man may bestow on his own species, he will never be able to render it more numerous in one place without destroying or diminishing it in another[J]. As soon as any one country is overstocked with inhabitants they diffuse themselves over other countries, or destroy each other, and not unfrequently establish laws and customs calculated to prevent an excess of multiplication. In climates of exuberant fertility, as China, Egypt, and Guinea, they banish, mutilate, drown, or sell their infants; in Catholic countries they condemn them to perpetual celibacy. Those who actually exist find no difficulty in arrogating to themselves the disposal of the rights of those who have no existence. Considering themselves as necessary, they annihilate contingent beings, and scruple not to suppress future generations for their own ease and convenience. Mankind, without perceiving it, treat their own species exactly in the same manner as they do other animals; they cherish and multiply, or neglect and destroy them, according as it suits their purpose; and as all moral effects depend upon physical causes, which ever since the earth assumed its form, are fixed and permanent, it follows that in the human, as well as in the other animal species, the number must likewise be uniform and unalterable. It is to be observed that this fixed state, this permanent number, are not to be considered in an absolute sense; all physical and moral causes, and all the effects which flow from them, are comprised and balanced within certain limits, more or less extended, but never so large as to destroy the equilibrium. As the whole universe is in a state of perpetual motion, and as all the forces of matter act against and counter-balance each other, so every thing is brought about in a kind of oscillation, to the middle points of which we refer the ordinary course of Nature, and whose extremes are the furthest removed from that course. In effect, therefore, we find that an excess of fecundity, either in animals or vegetables, is the usual fore-runner of sterility. Plenty and scarcity present themselves so alternately, and often follow so close upon each other, that a tolerable judgment may be formed of the product of one year by that of the preceding. The apple, plum, oak, beech, and indeed most fruit and forest trees, do not bear plentifully two years together. So likewise it is with caterpillars, May-bugs, flies, field mice, and many other animals, who if they multiply to excess one year, they will produce but a very small number the next. What, indeed, would become of all the fruits of the earth, of the most useful animals, or even of man himself, if these insects were to be proportionally increased after a fertile season? But no; the causes of destruction and sterility immediately follow those of an excessive multiplication. Independent of contagion, a necessary consequence of too great a mass of living matter assembled in one place, there are in every species, certain causes of death, as we shall hereafter have occasion to mention, and which are sufficient to counter-balance any preceding excess of fecundity. I must again observe that this is not to be taken in an absolute or strict sense, especially with respect to those species which do not remain entirely in a state of nature. Those which man takes care to rear are more abundant than they otherwise would be; but as his attention has its limits, so the increase which flows from it has long since been confined by unalterable bounds; and though in civilized countries, the human species and domestic animals, are more numerous than in other climates, they are never so to excess; because the very power which calls them into existence, destroys them when they become troublesome.

[J] We were at first inclined to combat this position of our learned author, with those reasons, founded upon facts, which may be adduced against it; but he has himself so completely replied to it at the end of his dissertation upon wild animals, page 26 of this volume, that any thing further than repeating his own observation must be unnecessary; for he there says, that, "in _process of time, we may reasonably suppose the surface of the earth will be equally inhabited_," which is surely impossible without considerable increase.

In those districts which are reserved for the chace, four or five hundred hares are sometimes killed in the course of one day's sport. These animals multiply amazingly; they engender at all seasons, and are in a condition to propagate before the first year of their life is expired. The females do not go with young above thirty or thirty-one days; they produce three or four, and are immediately after ready to receive the male; they likewise receive him during the time of gestation, and by a particular formation of their organs are often found to have a super-foetation; for the vagina and the matrix are continuous, and the latter has neither neck or orifice in the womb, as in other animals; yet each horn has an orifice which opens into the vagina and dilates during the time of bringing forth; and which forming two distinct uteri, act independently of each other; so that the females of this species are capable of conceiving and bringing forth by each matrix at different times; and consequently super-foetation must be as common among these animals, as it is rare among those which have not this double organ. It is plain, therefore, that the females may be impregnated at all times. By another singularity in their conformation they are found to be as lascivious as they are fruitful; the gland of the clitoris is prominent and almost as large as the sexual distinction of the male; and as the vulva is hardly visible, and the males when young have no exterior marks, it is often difficult to distinguish the sexes. It is these circumstances which have given rise to the opinions that there are many hermaphrodites among these animals, that the males sometimes bring forth, and that some are alternately males and females, and perform the office of either sex; because the females being more lascivious than the males will get upon them, and because they so much resemble each other externally, that unless very closely examined one sex may be mistaken for the other.

The young ones have their eyes open when brought forth; the mother suckles them about twenty days, after which they separate and provide for themselves; they do not wander far from each other, nor from the place of their birth; yet they live in solitude, each composing itself a form at the distance of sixty or eighty paces; thus when we find a leveret in any place, we are almost certain of finding one or two more in the neighbourhood. They feed more by night than day; and chiefly upon herbs, leaves, fruits, and grain, but above all they prefer those plants which yield a milky juice; they even eat the bark of trees in winter, except that of the alder and lime, neither of which they ever touch. When reared at home they are fed with lettuces and other herbs; but the flesh of these domestic fed hares has always a bad taste. They sleep and repose themselves in their forms during the day, and only live, as it were, in the night, when they range about, feed, and copulate; they may be seen by moonlight playing, leaping, and pursuing each other, but the smallest noise, even the rustling of a falling leaf is sufficient to alarm them; they fly, and in their flight take different ways.

Some authors have asserted that hares chew the cud; but I cannot believe this opinion to be well founded, as they have but one stomach, and the conformation of that, as well as the other intestines is altogether different in ruminating animals. The coecum of the latter is small, while those of hares are extremely large; and if we add to the capacity of the stomach this large coecum, we shall easily conceive, that being capable of receiving a great quantity of food, this animal may live upon herbage alone, like the horse and the ass, which have also a large coecum and but one stomach, and consequently cannot ruminate.

Hares sleep much, but always with their eyes open. They have neither eye-lids, nor cilia, and seem to have bad eyes; but as if for a recompence of that defect, their hearing is exceedingly acute, and their ears are very large in proportion to the size of their bodies. They move these long ears with great facility, and use them as an helm to direct their course, which is so rapid that they easily outstrip all other animals. Their fore legs being much shorter than their hind ones they can more easily mount than descend, for which reason when pursued they always make towards the rising grounds. Their running is a kind of leaping gallop, and they proceed without making the smallest noise, as their feet, even underneath, are covered with hair, and perhaps they are the only animals which have hair growing within side of their mouths. The hare does not live above seven or eight years; he completes his growth in one, and the duration of its life is proportioned to this period, for he lives to about seven times that space. Some indeed assert that the males live longer than the females, but that I much doubt. They pass their lives in solitude and silence, and never exert their voices but when seized or wounded; their cry is sharp and strong, and not unlike the human voice. They are not so savage as by their habits and manners might be supposed; they are gentle, and susceptible of a species of improvement. They are easily tamed, but never acquire that degree of attachment which is requisite to render them domestic, for those which are taken very young, and brought up in a house, will take the first opportunity to escape and fly into the country. As they have a good ear, as they sit of their own accord upon their hind legs, and use the fore legs like arms, some have been so tutored as to beat a drum, to perform gestures in cadence, &c.

In general the hare possesses sufficient instinct for its preservation, and sagacity to escape its enemies. It prepares itself a form, or nest; in winter he chuses a spot exposed to the south, and in summer one to the north. To conceal himself from view he hides among hillocks of the same colour with his own hair. "I have seen," says du Fouilloux, "a hare so cunning, that upon hearing the huntsman's horn he started from his form, and though at the distance of a quarter of a league, hasted to a pond, and there hid himself among the rushes in the middle of it, and thus escaped the pursuit of the dogs. I have seen a hare, which after running more than two hours before the dogs, has dislodged another, and took possession of his form. I have seen others, swim over two or three ponds, of which the smallest was not less than eighty paces broad. I have seen others, after a chace of two hours, enter a sheep cot, and remain among the cattle. I have seen others, when closely pursued, take refuge among a flock of sheep, from which they would not be separated. I have seen others, upon hearing the noise of the hounds, conceal themselves in the earth. I have seen others, which have gone along one side of the hedge, and returned by the other, so that there was only the thickness of the hedge between them and the dogs; and I have seen others, after a chace of half an hour, mount an old wall six feet high, and take refuge in a hole covered with ivy." But these facts are doubtless the greatest efforts of their instinct, for their common resources are less refined and intricate. They, in general, when pursued, content themselves with running rapidly, and afterwards tracing and retracing their own steps. They never direct their course against the wind, but always run with it. The females do not run so far out as the males, but they double more frequently. Hares, in general, if hunted upon their native spot, do not remove a great way from it, but return to their form, and if chaced for two successive days, they make exactly the same doublings on the second as they did on the first. If a hare runs straight forward, and to a great distance, it is a proof of his being a stranger to that spot, and that he was only there by accident. This generally happens during their most particular times of rutting, which are in January, February, and March, when the male hares finding but few females in their own districts, will roam for several leagues in search of them; but immediately upon being roused by the dogs, they make towards their native abodes, and never return again. The females do not thus go abroad; they are larger than the males, but have less strength and agility, and are more timid, for they never allow the dogs to come so near their forms as the males, and make use of more doublings and artifice. They are also more delicate, and more susceptible of the impressions of the air; they dread the water, and even avoid the dews; whereas among the males there is a kind which are fond of water, and are chaced in marshy and watery grounds, but the flesh of this sort has a very bad taste; and, in general, the flesh of all those which inhabit low valleys is whitish and insipid, while those in elevated countries, where the wild thyme, and other fine herbs abound, are delicious to the palate. It has also been remarked, that those which live in the centre of the woods, even in the same countries, are not so good as those that inhabit the borders, or live among the cultivated fields and vineyards; and that the flesh of the female is always more delicate than that of the male.

The nature of the soil has a great influence on hares, as well as on all other animals. The hares of the mountains are larger and fatter than those of the plains, and are also of a different colour, the former being browner, and having more white under the neck than the latter which are inclined to red. On high mountains, and in northern countries, they become white in winter, and recover their ordinary colour in the summer; there are but a few, and those perhaps very old ones, that continue always white, for all of them change more or less white as they advance in years.

The hares of Italy, Spain, Barbary, and other warm climates, are smaller than those of France and more northern nations; and according to Aristotle they were of a less size in Egypt than in Greece. They are exceedingly plentiful in Sweden, Poland, France, England, Germany, Barbary, Egypt, the Islands of the Archipelago, particularly Delos, which was formerly called Lagia, from the number of hares found in it. They are also plenty in Lapland, where they continue white for the whole ten months of the winter, and resume their yellow colour during the two months of the summer only. It appears then that all climates are nearly equal to them. However it is observed that they are less numerous in the eastern countries than in Europe; that there are scarcely any in South America, though they are numerous in Virginia, Canada, and even in the land that borders on Hudson's Bay, and in the Straits of Magellan. But these North American hares are perhaps of a different species from ours, for travellers tell us, that they are not only larger but that their flesh is white, and has a very different taste to that of the European hares. They add, that in North America these animals never shed their hair, and that their skins make excellent furs. In countries of excessive heat, as Senegal, Gambia, and particularly in the districts of Fida, Apam, and Acra, and in other countries situated under the torrid zone in Africa, and America, as New Holland, and the isthmus of Panama, there are also animals which travellers have taken for hares, but which seem rather to be a species of rabbit, which comes originally from the hot countries, and is never found very far to the north; whereas the hare is always fatter in proportion to the coldness of the country which he inhabits.

The flesh of this animal, though so much esteemed at the tables of Europeans, is not at all relished by the eastern nations. It is true that the flesh of the hare, as well as that of the hog, was forbidden as food by the law of Mahomet and the ancient Jewish law; but the Greeks and Romans held it in as great estimation as we do, "Inter quadrupedes gloria prima lepus," says Martial. In fact, both the flesh and the blood of this animal is excellent; but the fat adds nothing to the delicacy of the flesh; for the hare, when at its liberty in the open country, never grows fat; whereas he often dies with the excess of it when reared in a house.

The chace of the hare is an amusement, nay often the principal occupation of people in the country. As it requires but little apparatus and expence, and is even useful, it is an amusement universally agreeable. The hunter in the mornings and evenings watches at the corner of some wood for the hares going out or returning; and in the day he seeks to dislodge them from their form. When the air is fresh and the sun shines bright, a hare, which has been chaced, may be discovered on its form by the fumes which arise from its body; and I have seen some so expert in this observation that they have gone half a league to kill a hare on its seat. This animal will suffer itself to be very nearly approached, especially if the advance is made with a seeming inattention and obliquity. They are more afraid of dogs than men, and upon either smelling or hearing the former will immediately take to flight; though they run swifter than the dogs, yet as they do not take a direct course, but turn and double round the spot from whence they were started, the greyhound, who rather hunts by sight than smell, generally intercepts, seizes, and destroys them. They remain in the fields during the summer, in autumn among the vines, and in winter among the bushes or in the woods, and in all seasons they may be forced to the chace with proper hounds. They may be also taken by birds of prey. Owls, buzzards, eagles, foxes, wolves, and men, make continual war upon them. These animals have so many enemies, that they escape them only by chance, and are seldom allowed to enjoy that short life which Nature has allotted to them.

SUPPLEMENT.

From M. Hettlinger I understand, that the hares not uncommonly burrow in the clefts of the rocks among the mountains in the neighbourhood of Biagory, which is contrary to their practice in those climates, where they make forms and leave going underground to rabbits; that the former are not partial to those places where the latter are numerous, is pretty generally known; to which Pontoppidan has added the remark, that rabbits do not multiply where hares are in abundance; he says, "In Norway, rabbits are seldom met with, but hares are very numerous; they are either brown or grey, during summer, and constantly change to white in the winter; they catch mice and eat them, like cats, and are smaller than those found in Denmark." Whatever truth there may be in the other parts of his relation, their eating of mice is highly improbable, but it is not the only instance of his partiality for the marvellous.

M. le Vicomte de Querhoënt, in speaking of the hares of the Isle of France, says they are not bigger than the rabbits of France; that their hair is smoother, that they have a large black spot upon the hind part of their heads, and that their flesh is very white; and M. Adamson gives nearly a similar description of those of Senegal, excepting the black spot upon their necks.

_Engraved for Barr's Buffon._

THE RABBIT.

Although the hare (_fig. 58._) and the rabbit (_fig. 59._) are so very similar both in their external and internal conformation, yet they never intermix, but form two distinct and separate species. As hunters, however, have asserted that the male hares, in rutting time, run after and cover female rabbits, I have endeavoured to discover what would be the result of such a union. For this purpose I caused some male hares to be reared with some doe rabbits; and some male rabbits with doe hares, but these attempts were attended with no other effects than convincing me, that though these animals are so similar in form, they are so different in nature as to be incapable of producing an intermediate race. One young hare, and a young female rabbit of nearly the same age, did not live together three months; for, having acquired a little strength, they became dreadful enemies, and their continual battles terminated in the death of the hare. Of two male hares, each of which I confined with a doe rabbit, one shared the same fate, and the other, being very strong and ardent, never ceased from tormenting the rabbit, by endeavouring to cover her, and in the end occasioned her death, either by the wounds he gave her, or by his too violent caresses. Three or four doe hares, whom I matched with male rabbits, experienced the same fate, though in a still shorter time. Though there was never any produce, yet I am pretty certain that a copulation sometimes took place; at least that, notwithstanding the resistance of the female, the male was gratified: and there was more reason to expect a produce from this union, than that of the rabbit and hen; of which, according to a certain author[K], the fruit would be, _chickens covered with hair, or rabbits covered with feathers_! This strange conclusion was drawn from the act of a vicious male rabbit, who being unaccommodated with a female, made use of a hen as he might have done any other moveable: nor was there the least probability to expect any product from two animals whose species were so distant, since nothing results from an union between the hare and rabbit, which seem so nearly to approach each other.

[K] See a French Tract entitled, L'Art d'Elever les Poulets.

The fecundity of the rabbit is even greater than that of the hare; and without crediting Wotton's assertion, that a single pair being left upon an island, multiplied to six thousand at the end of a year; it is certain that they increase so prodigiously, in countries which are proper for their breed, that the earth cannot supply them with sufficient subsistence. They destroy herbs, roots, grains, fruits, and even young trees and shrubs; and if it were not for dogs and ferrets, they would reduce the country to a desart. The rabbit not only produces more frequently and in greater numbers than the hare, but it has more ways to escape its enemies, and to avoid the sight of man. The holes which it digs in the earth, where it retires in the day, and where it brings forth its young, protect it from the wolf, fox, and birds of prey. Here the whole family live in perfect security; here the females nourish their young, for the space of two months, nor ever conduct them abroad until they have sufficient strength to provide for themselves. By this means they avoid the dangers of their early age; while hares, on the contrary, are destroyed in greater numbers at this period, than during all the rest of their lives. This circumstance alone may suffice to prove that the rabbit is superior to the hare in point of sagacity. They are alike in their conformation, and have equal power to dig retreats. Both are equally timid; but the one, possessed of less art, is contented with forming a residence on the surface of the earth, where it remains continually exposed, while the other, by a superior instinct, digs into the earth, and secures itself an asylum; and as a proof this is the effect of sentiment, we never see the domestic rabbit taking that trouble. They neglect securing themselves retreats, from the same reason that domestic birds neglect the building of nests, because they are equally protected from the inconveniences which both species in their natural state must necessarily have been liable to. It has been often remarked, that when a warren is replenished with domestic rabbits they and their produce remain upon the surface, like hares; and that it is not until they have experienced a number of hardships, and passed several generations, they begin to dig holes in the earth for an asylum.

The domestic rabbits, like all other domestic animals, vary in colour; white, black, spotted, and grey, are, however, the only colours which properly belong to Nature. The black rabbits are the most scarce. The wild rabbits are all of a greyish brown, which is also the predominant colour among the tame ones; for in every litter we constantly find brown rabbits, even though the old ones were both black or both white, or the one white and the other black. It is seldom that more than one or two will resemble such parents, whereas the brown rabbits, though domestic, seldom produce any but of their own colour, and it is, as it were, by chance, if they bring forth white, black, or mixed ones.

These animals are capable of engendering by the age of five or six months. It is asserted they are constant in their amours, and that they usually attach themselves to a female which they never forsake. The latter is always ready to receive the male; she goes with young 30 or 31 days, and brings forth from 4 to 8 at a time. Like the doe hare she has a double matrix, and consequently may produce at two different times. It appears, however, that super-foetations are less frequent in this species than in that of the hare, which is perhaps owing to the females being more constant, and because they copulate less out of season. A few days before bringing forth they dig a fresh burrow, not in a straight line, but in a crooked direction, at the bottom of which they make an excavation; after which they tear a quantity of hair from off their bellies, and with it make a bed for their little ones. For the first two days they never quit them; they never stir abroad but when forced by hunger, and then return as soon as they have satisfied their appetite, which they do amazingly quick. Thus they tend and suckle their young for more than six weeks, during which time the buck has no knowledge of them, for he never enters the burrow dug by the doe; and she frequently, when she leaves her little ones, stops up the entrance to it with earth saturated with her own urine. But when they begin to come to the mouth of the hole, and to eat groundsel, and other herbs, which the mother picks out, he then begins to know them; he takes them between his paws, endeavours to smooth their hair, and licks their eyes. Each, in succession, partakes equally of his cares; at which time the mother bestows many caresses upon him, and generally proves with young a few days after.

From a gentleman in my neighbourhood, who had amused himself many years in rearing rabbits, I received the following remarks; "I began," says he, "with only one male and one female; the former perfectly white, and the latter brown. Of their produce, which was very numerous, the greatest part was brown, many of them white and mixed, and some few black. When the female is in season the male scarcely ever leaves her; his temperament is so warm that I have seen him go with her five or six times within the hour. At this time the female lies on her belly, with her fore legs stretched out, and utters little cries, which seem rather to be tokens of pleasure than pain. Their manner of coupling is similar to that of the cat, only the male scarcely bites the neck of the female. These animals pay great respect to parental authority, at least I judge so from the great deference which all my rabbits shewed for their first ancestor, whom I could easily distinguish by his whiteness, being the only male that I preserved of that colour. The family very soon augmented, but even those which had become fathers were still subordinate to him. Whenever they fought, whether for females or food, their great progenitor would run to the place of dispute, and as soon as he was perceived order would be immediately restored. If he surprised them in the act of assaulting each other, he would first separate and then chastise them on the spot. Another proof I had of his dominion over his posterity was, that having accustomed them to retire into their place upon the blowing of a whistle, whenever I gave the signal, how distant soever they might be, this old one put himself at their head, and though he came first he made them all pass before, nor would he enter till last himself. I fed them with wheat, bran, hay, and a good deal of the juniper-tree; of this last they ate all the berries, the leaves and the bark, and left nothing but the hard wood. This food gave their flesh an agreeable flavour, and rendered it as good as that of the wild rabbits."

_Engraved for Barr's Buffon._

These animals live eight or nine years; and as they pass the greater part of their lives in burrows, where they remain in repose and tranquillity, they grow much fatter than hares. Their flesh is also very different, both in colour and taste. That of the young rabbit is very delicate, but the flesh of the old ones is always hard and dry. They were originally, as I have already observed, natives of hot climates. They were known to the Greeks; and it appears that the only countries in Europe where they anciently existed were Greece and Spain. From thence they were brought into the more temperate climates of Italy, France, England, and Germany, where now they are naturalized; but in colder climates, as Sweden, and other northern parts, they can scarcely be reared in the house, and perish if they are left in the fields. On the contrary, they thrive in excessive heat, for we meet with them in the southern parts of Asia and Africa, as about the Persian Gulph, the Bay of Saldana, in Lybia, Senegal, and Guinea. We also meet with them in our American Islands, whither they have been transported from Europe, and have thriven extremely well.

CHAPTER IV.

OF CARNIVOROUS ANIMALS.[L]

[L] This division is according to the last Paris edition of Buffon. We apprize the reader of this, because he will find included under the denomination of carnivorous animals, some, which he may probably have been accustomed to refer to a different species.

Hitherto we have only treated of useful animals. Those which seem injurious are a far greater number; and though it universally appears that what is hurtful exists in greater plenty than what is serviceable, yet, as in the physical world, evil is subservient to good, for there can in fact, be no evil, since nothing, in effect, injures Nature. If to destroy animated beings is hurtful, is not man who is considered as forming a part of the general system of those beings, the most injurious and pernicious of them? He alone sacrifices and annihilates more living individuals than all the carnivorous tribes. No further, then, are they injurious than because they are the rivals of man, because they have the same appetites, the same fondness for animal food; and because to satisfy a want of the most urgent necessity, they occasionally dispute with him that prey which he had reserved for his own excesses; for we sacrifice more to our intemperance than to our real wants. Born to destroy those beings which are subordinate, we should exhaust Nature if she were not exhaustless, and by a fertility superior to our depredations, renovates the destruction we continually make. But it is so ordained that death should contribute to life, and that reproduction should spring from destruction. However great, therefore, may be the waste made by man and carnivorous animals, the total quantity of living matter is never diminished, and if they hasten deaths they are also the cause of new births being produced.

Large animals form but the smallest part of animated nature. The earth swarms with the smaller kinds. Each plant, each grain, each particle of organic matter, contains millions of living atoms. Vegetables appear to be the first fund for subsisting Nature; but this fund, however abundant and inexhaustible, would hardly be sufficient for the still more abundant tribes of insects. Their increase, altogether as numerous, and often more quick, than the reproduction of plants, is a sufficient indication of their superior numbers. Plants are only reproduced once a year, whereas in insects, especially among the smaller species, one season gives birth to several generations. They would multiply, then, more than plants, if they were not devoured by other animals. Among insects there are numbers who live upon other insects; there are some, as the spiders, which devour with indifference their own as well as other species; they serve for food to the birds; and fowls, both wild and tame, are destined for the nourishment of man, or the prey of carnivorous animals. Thus violent deaths seem to be equally as necessary as natural ones; they are both modes of destruction and renovation; the one serves to preserve nature in a perpetual spring, and the other maintains the order of her productions, and limits the number of each species. They are both effects dependent upon general causes; every individual falls of itself at the end of a certain period, or if prematurely destroyed it is from being superabundant. How many are there whose existence is, as it were, anticipated? How many flowers are cut down in the spring? How many seeds are annihilated before their development? Man and carnivorous animals feed upon individuals which are either wholly formed, or nearly so; flesh, eggs, grain, and seeds of every species, form their usual nourishment, by which alone the exuberance of Nature might be restrained. Let us consider any of the inferior species which serve as food to others; herrings, for example, present themselves in millions to our fishermen, and after having fed all the monsters of the northern seas, they contribute to the subsistence of all the nations in Europe for a certain part of the year. If prodigious numbers of them were not destroyed, what would be the effects of their prodigious multiplication? By them alone would the whole surface of the sea be covered. But their numbers would soon prove a nuisance; they would corrupt and destroy each other. For want of sufficient nourishment their fecundity would diminish; by contagion and famine they would be equally destroyed; the number of their own species would not be increased, but the number of those that feed upon them would be diminished. As this remark is alike applicable to any other species, so it is necessary they should prey upon each other; the killing of animals, therefore, is both a lawful and innocent custom, since it is founded in nature, and it is upon that seemingly hard condition they are brought into existence.

The motives, however, which incline us to doubt of this truth do honour to humanity. Animals, those at least which have senses, and are composed of flesh and blood, are, like us, capable of pleasure, and subject to pain; it is, therefore, a cruel insensibility to sacrifice, without necessity, those who approach or live with us, and whose feelings are reflected by the signs of pain; for by those, whose nature is very different to ours, we can be but little affected. Natural pity is grounded on the relations we have with the object that suffers, and it is more or less lively as the resemblance and conformity of the structure is more or less great. The word _compassion_ indicates that we suffer, that we are acted upon. The mind partakes less of this pity than the body; and animals are susceptible of it as well as man; the voice of pain moves them, they run to the assistance of each other, and they shrink from the dead carcass of one of their own species. Thus horror and pity are less passions of the mind than natural affections, which depend on the sensibility of the body, and on the similitude of its conformation; therefore this sentiment must diminish in proportion as the nature of one animal differs from that of another. When we strike a dog, or kill a lamb, it excites some pity; but none do we feel in cutting down a tree, or swallowing an oyster. In fact, can it be doubted that those animals, whose organization is similar to ours, must experience similar sensations? And those sensations must be proportioned to the activity and perfection of their senses; those whose senses are obtuse can they have exquisite feelings? and those who are defective in any organ of sense, must they not also be defective in all the sensations which have any affinity thereto? Motion is a necessary effect of the exercise of sentiment. We have already evinced, (in treating of the nature of animals) that in whatever manner a being is organized, if it has sentiment, it cannot fail to express its feelings by outward motions. Thus plants, though rightly organized, are insensible beings, as well as all animals which have no apparent motion; those animals also which, like the sensitive plant, move only their bodies and are denied progressive motion, have a very small degree of sentiment; and, in fine, those which are capable of progressive motion, but whose actions are, like so many automatons, very few and always the same, have but a small portion of sentiment, and that limited to a few objects. There are numerous automatons in the human species: education and the respective communication of ideas augment the quantity as well as the vivacity of our sentiments. In this respect how great is the difference between the civilized man and the savage? In the like manner it is with animals; those that live in a domestic state, by their intercourse with man have their feelings improved; while those who remain wild possess only the sensibility they inherit from Nature, which is often more certain, but always less in quantity than that which is acquired.