Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood: Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other MatterWalter, J. Conway (James Conway)
History
Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood: Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter
Walter, J. Conway (James Conway)
Woodhall Spa (England)
(4) One which I shot at, and missed in the ling, bolted straight for a
hole, as though accustomed to it, and I never knew a hare to go to ground
in that ready way.
(5) A tradition has long attached to the Moor that the hare and rabbit
do occasionally inter-breed.
Mr. Heape replied:—“I am aware that many naturalists deny that hares and
rabbits will breed together. I am not, however, myself of that opinion,
but I never had satisfactory proof of such a cross occurring.” Further
enquiry led to the following facts:—In the year 1773 the Abbe Domenico
Gagliari got two litters from a female hare by a male rabbit. Richard
Thursfield also got hybrid’s of these two species. M. Roux, in 1847,
established a breed of “Leporides” in Angonleme, where he bred largely
hybrids of hares and rabbits, and these hybrids were fertile with both
parent species and among themselves. Baron de Gleichen states that at
Hoching, Canton de la Prusse, Polonaise, hybrids of hare (female), and
rabbits (male) are generally known. He says, however, that M. Brocca,
the French savant, states that there are anatomical differences between
hare and rabbit which make it, antecedently, improbable that they should
inter-breed. I have myself shot three of these hybrids on the Ostler
Ground, and have one of them stuffed. In the year 1897 Sir Henry Hawley
shot a similar specimen in Haltham Wood, some five miles from Woodhall;
more recently (Oct. 4th, 1898), the Rev. C. E. Chapman, then rector of
Scrivelsby, shot another in New York Fen; one was occasionally seen on
the Ostler Ground in 1898, and one was mentioned in “Land and Water,”
March 5, 1892, as having been shot on the Moors, at Parkend, in
Northumberland. I may add that a cross between a rabbit and guinea pig
is in the possession of a person at Horncastle; and I have lately heard
of a cross between black game and the capercailzie in Scotland. But the
following somewhat analogous cases have created special interest.
Professor Ewart, of Edinburgh, has bred a cross between a male Berchell’s
zebra and a mare pony, of the Isle of Rum breed, half wild, lent for the
experiment by Lord Arthur Cecil. The pony was jet black; the foal
resulting, except over the hind quarters, had as many stripes as the
zebra sire, the stripes being fawn colour, with background nearly black.
In form it closely resembled a well-bred foal. As another interesting
case of a similar kind, Lord Morton has bred a cross between a male
quagga and a nearly pure-bred Arab mare; and Lord Tankerville has, more
than once, bred a cross between the famous wild Chillingham bull (Bos
Urus Primigenius) and a shorthorn cow.
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