The rabbit appears to have been originally peculiar to Spain, Southern France, and the adjoining islands. Strabo (iii. 2. § 6.) says that it is found nearly over the whole of Spain, and in the Balearic islands; and that it reaches as far as Massilia. Polybius (xii. 3.) likewise states it to be a native of Corsica. It was unknown to the Greeks, and is not mentioned by Aristotle in his works on natural history (see Camus, _Notes sur l'Histoire des Animaux d'Aristote_, p. 278.); nor does it ever occur in the Æsopian fables, although the hare is frequently introduced. Hence it had no native Greek name; and Polybius borrows the Latin word, calling it [Greek: kuniklos] (compare _Athen._, ix. p. 400.). Strabo uses the periphrasis of "burrowing hares," [Greek: geôruchoi lagideis]. Ælian, again, employs the Latin name, which he considers to be of Iberian origin (_De Nat. Anim._, xiii. 15.). If this be true, the sense of _subterranean passage_, which _cuniculus_ also bears, is secondary, and not primary (compare Plin. _Nat. Hist._, viii. 81.). The language of Varro _de Re Rust._ (iii. 12.) likewise shows that the rabbit was in his time peculiar to Spain, and had not been introduced into Italy. The meaning of the Hebrew word _Saphan_, which is translated _cony_ in the authorised version of the Old Testament (Lev. xi. 5.; Deut. xiv. 7.; Ps. civ. 18.; Prov. xxx. 26.), has been fully investigated by biblical critics and naturalists. (See Bochart's _Hierozoicon_, vol. ii. pp. 409-429., ed. Rosenmüller; Winer, _Bibl. Real-Wörterbuch_, in SPRINGHASE; _Penny Cyclopædia_, in HYRAX.) It is certainly _not_ the rabbit, which is not a native of Syria and Palestine: but whether this ruminant quadruped, which lives in the rocks, is the jerboa, or a species of hyrax, or some other small edible animal of a like description, is difficult to determine. From the manner in which Strabo speaks of Spain and the Balearic islands being infested by large numbers of rabbits, it would appear (as Legrand d'Aussy remarks, _Vie privée des Français_, tom. ii. p. 24.) that the ancients did not eat its flesh. The rabbit is now so abundant in parts of the south of France, that, according to the same author, a sportsman in the islands near Arles who did not kill a hundred, would be dissatisfied with his day's sport. A Provençal gentleman, who in 1551 went out to kill rabbits with some of his vassals, and three dogs, brought home in the evening not less than six hundred.