So numerous are these animals in some parts of England, where attention is paid to preserving the breed, that they become greatly injurious to the crops of all the neighbouring farmers. They feed upon green corn, clover, and other useful vegetables; and frequently commit much damage in young plantations, by eating the bark from the trees. Some years ago a gentleman in Suffolk found it necessary to destroy the hares near some new plantations, and 1082 were ascertained to have been killed. 74. _The ALPINE HARE_ (Lepus Alpinus) _is a Siberian animal, destitute of tail, of tawny colour, with rounded, brown ears, and brown feet._ Amongst the mountains of Siberia alpine hares are very numerous. They live in burrows or holes under ground, and store up, beneath the shelter of trees or rocks, large ricks of dried grass and other vegetables for their winter's subsistence. These collections are anxiously sought after by persons engaged in the hunting of sables (55); and, in many instances, they are the means of preserving their horses from perishing by famine. Some of the adjacent peasantry also search them out as food for their horses and cattle. The _skins_ of the alpine hares supply one of the articles of commerce betwixt the Russians and Chinese. 75. _The RABBIT_ (Lepus cuniculus) _is a British quadruped belonging to the same tribe as the hare; and is principally distinguishable from that animal by its proportionally shorter ears, and by the hind legs being only one-third of the length of the body._ _The colour of the wild rabbit is dusky brown above, and paler or whitish on the under parts. In the domestic rabbit the colour is various, white, grey, black, or black and white._ _These animals inhabit nearly all the warmer parts of Europe, as well as several of the temperate countries of Asia and Africa._ There are farms in many parts of England, particularly in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, and Cambridgeshire, where the breeding of rabbits is rendered an extremely advantageous pursuit. The most desirable situations are those in which the soil is loose and sandy, and where the ground rises, in different parts into low hills. Such lands can be more profitably employed as rabbit-warrens than any others, from the greater facility with which the animals are able to form their burrows in the earth, and the less liability they have to be flooded, by the falling of heavy rains.