Captain Sulivan thinks that the herds do
not mingle; and it is a singular fact, that the mouse-coloured
cattle, though living on the high land, calve about a month earlier
in the season than the other coloured beasts on the lower land. It
is interesting thus to find the once domesticated cattle breaking
into three colours, of which some one colour would in all
probability ultimately prevail over the others, if the herd were
left undisturbed for the next several centuries.
The rabbit is another animal which has been introduced, and has
succeeded very well; so that they abound over large parts of the
island. Yet, like the horses, they are confined within certain
limits; for they have not crossed the central chain of hills, nor
would they have extended even so far as its base, if, as the
Gauchos informed me, small colonies had not been carried there. I
should not have supposed that these animals, natives of Northern
Africa, could have existed in a climate so humid as this, and which
enjoys so little sunshine that even wheat ripens only occasionally.
It is asserted that in Sweden, which any one would have thought a
more favourable climate, the rabbit cannot live out of doors.
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