apparently differ by two or three, but I did not attend
to them, and they are difficult to count with certainty.

In the first cervical vertebra, or atlas, the anterior margin of the
neural arch varies a little in wild specimens, being either nearly
smooth, or furnished with a small supra-median atlantoid process; I
have figured a specimen with the largest process (_a_) which I have
seen; but it will be observed how inferior this is in size and
different in shape to that in a large lop-eared rabbit. In the latter,
the infra-median process (_b_) is also proportionally much thicker and
longer. The alae are a little squarer in outline.

[Illustration: Fig. 12.--Atlas Vertebrae, of natural size; inferior
surface viewed obliquely. Upper figure, Wild Rabbit. Lower figure,
Hare-coloured, large, Lop-eared Rabbit. _a_, supra-median, atlantoid
process; _b_, infra-median process.]

_Third cervical vertebra._--In the wild rabbit (fig. 13, A _a_) this
vertebra, viewed on the inferior surface, has a transverse process,
which is directed obliquely backwards, and consists of a single pointed
bar; in the fourth vertebra this process is slightly forked in the
middle. In the large lop-eared rabbits this process (B _a_) is forked
in the third vertebra, as in the fourth of the wild rabbit. But the
third cervical vertebrae of the wild and lop-eared (A _b_, B _b_)
rabbits differ more conspicuously when their anterior articular
surfaces are compared; for the extremities of the antero-dorsal
processes in the wild rabbit are simply rounded, whilst in the
lop-eared they are trifid, with a deep central pit. The canal for the
spinal marrow in the lop-eared (B _b_) is more elongated in a
transverse direction than in the wild rabbit; and the passages for the
arteries are of a slightly different shape. These several differences
in this vertebra seem to me well deserving attention.

[Illustration: Fig. 13.--Third Cervical Vertebra, of natural size,
of--A. Wild Rabbit; B. Hare-coloured, large, Lop-eared Rabbit. _a, a_,
inferior surface; _b, b_, anterior articular surfaces.]

_First dorsal vertebra._--Its neural spine varies in length in the wild
rabbit; being sometimes very short, but generally more than half as
long as that of the second dorsal; but I have seen it in two large
lop-eared rabbits three-fourths of