THE RUMINANT HARE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 771, 30 April 1954, Page 5

THE RUMINANT HARE

Sir,-In reply to Varian J. Wilson, in the experiment of Morot, confirmed by Eden, Southern and Taylor, the caged rabbits had free access to fresh food. They were prevented only from obtaining the soft pellets passed from the anus. These rabbits died because it was necessary for the food to pass twice through the alimentary canal. Mr. Wilson seems to be under the impression that the caged rabbits were forced to eat the pellets and had no other food. This was not so. They were in

given fresh food, and prevented from eating the pellets. His example, therefore, of the springboks is beside the point. The springboks in the van ofthe herd, like locusts, ate all the green feed, while the animals in the rear were reduced to eating the droppings, because there was nothing else to eat. Of course, rabbits and hares do not regurgitate their cud, as do the herbivora, but they nevertheless do chew that which had _ previously been partly digested. They literally chew their cud for their lives.

D. S.

MILNE

(Lower Hutt).

Sir,-In my Scofield Reference Bible I have come across this interesting footnote to the sixth verse, Leviticus, Chapter 11: "Hebrew, ‘arnebeth,’ an unidentified animal, but certainly not a hare, possessing as it is said to, characteristics not possessed by the hare. The supposed error in the text is due entirely to the translators’ assumption that the English hare and the ancient ‘arnebeth’ were identical." .

SCOFIELD

(Christchurch).