cannot account for most of the differences in the skeleton; but we shall
see that the increased size of the body, due to careful nurture and
continued selection, has affected the head in a particular manner. Even the
elongation and lopping of the ears have influenced in a small degree the
form of the whole skull. The want of exercise has apparently modified the
proportional length of the limbs in comparison with that of the body.

[As a standard of comparison, I prepared skeletons of two wild rabbits from
Kent, one from the Shetland Islands, and one from Antrim in Ireland. As all
the bones in these four specimens from such distant localities closely
resembled each other, presenting scarcely any appreciable difference, it
may be concluded that the bones of the wild rabbit are generally uniform in
character.

SKULL.

I have carefully examined skulls of ten large lop-eared rabbits, and of
five common domestic rabbits, which latter differ from the lop-eared only
in not having such large bodies or ears, yet both larger than in the wild
rabbit. First for the ten lop-eared rabbits: in all these the skull is
remarkably elongated in comparison with its breadth. In a wild rabbit the
length was 3.15 inches, in a large fancy rabbit 4.3; whilst the breadth of
the cranium enclosing the brain was in both almost exactly the same. Even
by taking as the standard of comparison the widest part of the zygomatic
arch, the skulls of the lop-eared are proportionally to their breadth
three-quarters of an inch too long. The depth of the head has increased
almost in the same proportion with the length; it is the breadth alone
which has not increased. The parietal and occipital bones enclosing the
brain are less arched, both in a longitudinal and transverse line, than in
the wild rabbit, so that the shape of the cranium is somewhat different.