two carriage roads have been constructed from Quito to Milagro on the Guayaquil river and to the province of Manabi respectively. The railway projected between the city of Guayaquil and Quito has as yet advanced inland only to Chimbo bridge at the foot of the Andes, so that the really difficult part of the enterprise remains untouched; a telegraph line, however, has been opened. The distance between these two leading cities of the republic is 200 miles by road, and the transit of goods takes fourteen days and costs from 10 to 14 dollars per cargo of 250 lb. Though built on the eastern skirts of the magnificent volcano of Pichincha (15,827 feet) and within 5 miles of its crater, Quito is not within sight of the summit, a secondary eminence known to the Incas as Yavirá, and now as Panecillo, rising between. The site is an irregular plain traversed by two ravines running down from the mountain, one of which is arched over so as not to interfere with the alignment of the streets. Though the streams flow east at first, they really belong to the system of the Perucho which discharges into the Pacific near Esmeraldas. The houses, mostly of sun-dried brick, are usually low and squat, and not a chimney is to be seen. The public buildings are also of a massive and heavylooking Spanish type. In the principal square are the cathedral, with a fine marble porch, the Government house, with a colonnade running the whole length of the façade, and the palace of the nuncio. But the finest building in Quito is the college of the Jesuits, part of which is occupied by the university, an institution long rendered interesting to Englishmen by the presence of the venerable botanist Dr William Jameson. There is a public library in the city of 20,000 volumes, and a polytechnic school was instituted in 1872. The local manufactures are confined to coarse cotton and woollen stuffs, thread, lace, hosiery, silk, and a certain amount of jewellery. About 1870 the population was estimated by Dr Jameson at between 30,000 and 40,000; the Almanach de Gotha for 1885 states it as 80,000.

Quito (the city of the Quitus, a race akin to the Quichuas of Peru) was peacefully conquered by the Spanish captain Sebastian Benalcazar in 1533. It received the rank of a Spanish city in 1541 from Charles V., and became the capital of the province of Quito in the viceroyalty of New Granada. More than once it has suffered severely from earthquakes in 1797, for example, 40,000 of its inhabitants were thus destroyed; and in March 22, 1859, property was damaged to the value of $3,000,000.

QUOITS. This pastime resembles the ancient discusthrowing which formed one of the five games of the Greek pentathlon (see DISCUS, vol. vii. p. 258). The modern quoit, however, is a far lighter missile, and consists of a circular iron ring to be thrown or pitched in play at a fixed object. This ring is flattened, having a thick inner edge and thin outer one. The latter is slightly indented at a given spot to receive the tip of the player's forefinger with out cutting it. There is no limit to the weight of a quoit, but this should be specified before commencing a match. The diameter is restricted to 8 inches over all. Two iron pins, called "hobs," are driven into the ground at a certain distance apart, generally 19 yards. There may be one or more players a side, and each has two quoits. These he may throw successively; or else each player throws one only at a time and a second round follows in the same order, as may have been agreed on. The throwing takes place the reverse way after each round. A player grasps the quoit with his forefinger along the outer edge and the tip in the dent, holding the two surfaces between the thumb and the other fingers. In pitching, a slight rotary motion is imparted by the wrist, in order that the quoit may pass smoothly and horizontally through the air, and alight flat. Each player attempts to make his quoit pitch on the hob or pin so that the head of the latter passes

through the circular opening in the centre of the missile. Such a success is termed a "ringer," and two is scored. Quoits of opposite sides alighting equidistant from the pin do not score at all. If a player has both his quoits nearer the pin than any of his opponents he scores two; while if only one be nearer he is entitled to count one to his credit. The game is popular in many country towns and villages of England and in the mining districts of the Midlands and Lancashire. The rules were drawn up as follows in 1869:— 1. That the distance from pin to pin be 19 yards, and that the player stand level with the pin, and deliver his quoit with the first step. 2. That no quoit be allowed which measures more than 8 inches external diameter, but the weight may be unlimited. That the pins be 1 inch above the clay. 4. That all measurements be taken from any visible part of the pin to the nearest visible part of the quoit. No clay or quoit to be disturbed. 5. That no quoit count unless fairly delivered in the clay free from the outer rim, and that no quoit on its back count unless it holds clay or is knocked out by another quoit. That no quoit rolling on the clay count unless it first strikes another quoit or the pin. 6. That each player deliver his quoits in succession, his opponent then following. 7. That an umpire be appointed, and in all cases of dispute his decision be final.

3.

QUO WARRANTO, in English law, is the name given to an ancient prerogative writ calling upon any person usurping any office, franchise, liberty, or privilege belonging to the crown to show "by what warrant❞ he maintained his claim. It lay also for non-user or misuser of an office, &c. If the crown succeeded, judgment of forfeiture or ouster was given against the defendant. The procedure was regulated by statute as early as 1278 (the statute of Quo Warranto, 6 Edw. I. c. 1). After a time the cumbrousness and inconvenience of the ancient practice led to its being superseded by the modern form of an information in the nature of a quo warranto, exhibited in the Queen's Bench Division either by the attorney general ex officio or by the queen's coroner and attorney at the instance of a private person called the relator. The information will not be issued except by leave of the court on proper cause being shown. It does not lie where there has been no user or where the office has determined. Nor does it lie for the usurpation of every kind of office. But it lies where the office is of a public nature and created by statute, even though it is not an encroachment upon the prerogative of the crown. Where the usurpation is of a municipal office the information is regulated by 9 Anne c. 20, under which the defendant may be fined and judgment of ouster given against him, and costs may be granted for or against the relator. Such an information must, in the case of boroughs within the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, be brought within twelve months after disqualification (45 & 46 Vict. c. 50, § 225); in the case of other boroughs, within six years after the defendant first took upon himself the office (32 Geo. III. c. 58, § 2). information in the nature of a quo warranto, though nominally a criminal, has long been really a civil proceeding, and has recently been expressly declared to be so (47 & 48 Vict. c. 61, § 15). In cases not falling within 9 Anne c. 20, judgment of ouster is not usually given. The most famous historical instance of quo warranto was the action taken against the corporation of London by Charles II. in 1684. The Queen's Bench adjudged the charter and franchises of the city of London to be forfeited to the crown (State Trials, vol. viii., 1039). This judgment was reversed by 2 Will. & Mary, sess. 1, c. 8; and it was further enacted, in limitation of the prerogative, that the franchises of the city should never be seized or forejudged on pretence of any forfeiture or misdemeanor.

The

In the United States the right to a public office is tried by quo Proceedings by quo warranto lie in a United States court for the warranto or analogous procedure, regulated by the State laws. removal of persons holding office contrary to Art. xiv. § 3 of the Amendments to the Constitution, Act of May 31, 1870, c. 14.

years.

belong to this Raban, though it has been ascribed to him for 600 Its writer was undoubtedly a Provençal. (S. M. S.-S.) RABANUS MAURUS. See HRABANUS MAURUS. RABAT (RIBÁT), RBÁT, or ARBÁT, also known as NEW SALLEE, a city of Morocco, on the coast of the Atlantic, 130 miles south of Cape Spartel at the mouth of the Bú Rakrak, which separates it from Sallee proper on the northern bank. It is a commercial town of about 26,000 to 30,000 inhabitants, occupying a rocky plateau and surrounded by massive but dilapidated walls, strengthened by three forts on the seaward side. The old citadel, overhanging the mouth of the river, is still, though partially in ruins, an imposing building, with huge arched gateways;

square towers, and masses of rich red-brown

masonry;

and

to the south of the town lies a modern palace defended by earthworks after the European fashion. The conspicuous feature in the view from the sea is the Hasan tower, a beautiful square-built minaret 180 feet high, which stands at an elevation of about 65 feet above the sea to the west of the walled town, and in the midst of gardens and orchards whose vegetation partly hides the ruined columns of the ancient mosque to which it was attached. It is constructed of soft reddish-brown stone, and each side is adorned with a different design. At one time the Bú Rakrak afforded a much better harbour than it does now: the roadstead is quite unprotected,. and there is a dangerous bar at the mouth of the river. Rabát trades with Fez and the interior of Morocco, with the neighbouring coasttowns and Gibraltar, and with Marseilles, Manchester, and London. The principal articles of export are wool, hides, and wax, and the products of that local manufacture of leather, carpets, mats, woollen and cotton stuffs, pottery, and circular brass trays which makes Rabát the greatest industrial centre in Morocco. Cotton goods and loaf-sugar are first value the imports. The among average of the exports in the ten years 1872 to 1881 was £47,236, and of the imports £73,945. In 1883 the figures were £39,596 and £50,222 respectively.

Sallee (Salá), on the north side of the river, is also enclosed with walls. Much of the interior, however, is vacant and the houses are mean; and, unlike their neighbours of Rabát, the inhabitants (about 30,000) down to quite recent times distinguished themselves by particular hostility to Christians, who were thus prevented from entering their gates. To the north a ruined aqueduct extends for miles.

Rabát was founded by Yak'úb al-Manşúr (ob. 1306); but Sallee was then an ancient city, and on the scarped hills to the west of Rabát stand the ruins of Sala, a Ronian colony. Shella, as the place is now called, was the seat of the mausoleum of the BeníMerin dynasty.

RABBA, a town of Nupi or Nufi, on the bank of the Kworra (Niger), opposite the island of Zagozhi, in 9° 6' N. lat., and 200 miles above the confluence of the Kworra and the Binue. At the time of Lander's visit in 1830 it was a place of 40,000 inhabitants and one of the most important markets in the country. In 1851 Dr Barth reported it "in ruins," and in 1867 Rohlfs found it with only 500 inhabitants. A mission station, established there in 1857 by the Church Missionary Society, was afterwards withdrawn. The town has latterly somewhat recovered its position.

RABBÃH-i.e., RAB ABBAH BAR NAHMANI-was of the house of Eli, on whom the curse rested that none of them should reach a high age (1 Sam. ii. 33). Like Rābā, he tried to remove this curse (T. B., Rosh Hasshanah, 18a; see RABA). He was twenty-two years head of the academy of Pumbaditha, from which he fled in the year 330, pursued by a troop of the Persian king (Shápúr II.), and perished miserably in a jungle (T. B., Bobo Metsio, leaf 86a).

Rabbit.

separated from the hare by the fact that it brings forth its young naked, blind, and helpless; to compensate for this, it digs a deep burrow in the earth in which they are born and reared, while the young of the hare are born fully clothed with fur, and able to take care of themselves in the mere shallow depression or "form" in which they are born. The weight of the rabbit is from 2 to 3 lb, although individuals perfectly wild have been recorded up to more than 5. Its general habits are too well known It breeds from four to need a detailed description here. to eight times a year, bringing forth each time from three to eight young. Its period of gestation is about thirty days, and it is able to bear when six months old. It attains to an age of about seven or eight years.

The geographical distribution of the rabbit presents many most interesting peculiarities. It is believed to be originally a native of the western half of the Mediterranean basin only, and still abounds in Spain, Sardinia, southern Italy and Sicily, Greece, Tunis, and Algeria; and many of the islands adjoining these countries are quite overrun with it. Thence it has spread, partly by man's agency, northwards throughout temperate western Europe, increasing rapidly wherever it gains a footing; and this extension is still going on, as is shown by the 1 See for a similar expression Matt. xvii. 20.

case of Scotland, in which sixty years ago rabbits were little known, while they are now found in all suitable localities up to the extreme north. It has also gained admittance into Ireland, and now abounds there as much as in England. Out of Europe the same extension of range has been going on. In New Zealand and Australia rabbits, introduced either for profit or sport, have increased to such an extent as to form one of the most serious pests that the farmers have to contend against, as the climate and soil seem to suit them perfectly and their natural enemies are too few and too lowly organized to keep

their numbers within reasonable bounds. In other cases rabbits introduced into islands have become or remained more or less distinct from their parent stock; thus the rabbits both of the Falkland Islands and of Jamaica still show traces of their descent from domesticated varieties, and have never reverted to the ordinary brownish-grey type. And again, as was pointed out by Mr Darwin,1 the rabbits in the island of Porto Santo, near Madeira, whose ancestors were introduced from Spain in 1418 or 1419, have formed quite a distinct diminutive race, barely half the bulk or weight of English rabbits, and differing in certain slight details of colour and habits.

The rabbit has been domesticated by man from a very early period. No doubt exists amongst naturalists that all the varieties of the domestic animal are descended from the Lepus cuniculus. The variations which have been perpetuated and intensified by artificial selection are, with the exception of those of the dog, greater than have been induced in any other species of mammal. For not only has the weight been more than quadrupled in some of the larger breeds, and the structure of the skull and other parts of the skeleton greatly altered, but the proportionate size of the brain has been considerably reduced and the colour and texture of the fur altered in the most remarkable manner. The establish ment of these extreme variations is dependent on the highly artificial conditions under which the animals are kept, their great prolificacy, and the rapidity with which the generations succeed each other, which enable the process of artificial selection by the preservation of those most suited to the purposes of the breeder to be carried into effect with facility.

This

The Lop-eared breed is the oldest English fancy variety; it has been cultivated carefully for about a century, the aim of the breeder being chiefly directed to the development of the size of the cars, and with such success that they sometimes measure more than 23 inches from tip to tip and exceed 6 inches in width. development, which is accompanied by great changes in the structure of the skull, that have been carefully described by Darwin in his Variation of Animals, &c., depends on breeding the animals in warm damp hutches, without which the best developed parents fail to produce the desired offspring. In colour the lop-eared rabbits vary greatly.

The Belgian hare is a large variety of a hardy and prolific character, which closely resembles the common hare in colour, and is not unlike it in form. Some few years since many of these animals were sold as leporides or hybrids, produced by the union of the hare and the rabbit; but the most careful experimenters have failed to obtain any such hybrid, and the naked immature condition in which young rabbits are born as compared with the clothed and highly developed young hares renders it exceedingly unlikely that hybrids could be produced. Nor does the flesh of the Belgian rabbit resemble that of the hare in colour or flavour. A closely allied variety, though of even larger size, is known by the absurd name of Patagonian rabbit; it has no relation to the country after which it is called. The Angora rabbit is characterized by the extreme elongation and fineness of the fur, which in good specimens reaches or 7 inches in length, requiring great care and frequent combing to prevent it from becoming matted. The Angoras most valued are albinos, with pure white fur and pink eyes; in some parts of the Continent they are kept by the peasants and clipped regularly. Amongst the breeds which are valued for the distribution of

colour on the fur are the Himalayan and the Dutch. The former is white, but the whole of the extremities-viz., the nose, the ears, tail, and feet-are black or very dark in colour. This very pretty breed has no connexion with the mountain chain from whence it has taken its name, but is a variety produced by careful breeding and selection as fully described by Darwin (op. cit.). Though but recently produced by crossing, it now generally breeds true to colour, at times throwing back, however, to the silver greys from which it was derived. The rabbits known in Great Britain as Dutch are of small size, and are valued for the disposition of the colour and

1 Variation of Animals and Plants, 2d ed., i. p. 119.

markings. The entire body behind the shoulder-blades is uniformly coloured, with the exception of the feet; the anterior part of the and ears being coloured. In some strains the coloured portion body, including the fore legs, neck, and jaws, is white, the checks extends in front of the fore legs, leaving only a ring of white round the neck. The more accurately the coloured portion is defined the higher is the animal esteemed.

The Silver grey is a uniform coloured variety, the fur of which is strains. a rich chinchilla grey, varying in depth of colour in the different From the greater value of the fur silver greys have been frequently employed to stock warrens, as they breed true to colour in the open if the ordinary wild rabbits are rigorously excluded. other colours known, as Silver cream and Silver brown, are closely

allied varieties.

As an article of food the domesticated rabbit is of considerable

importance. From 100 to 200 tons are imported into London from Ostend every week during the colder months of the year, having been reared in hutches by the Belgian peasants. They are forwarded without their skins, which are half the value of the flesh. A plan has been recently devised by Major Morant, which is known as "hutch-farming in the open.' The animals are kept in large hutches with projecting roofs, floored with coarse galvanized iron netting, through which the grass projects to be eaten by the rabbits. The hutches are shifted twice or thrice a day, so that the animals are constantly on clean ground and have fresh food. The young, when old enough to leave the mother, are reared in somewhat larger hutches of a similar description and killed for market under three months of age.

RABELAIS, FRANÇOIS (c. 1490-1553), the greatest of French humourists and one of the few great humourists of the world, was born at Chinon on the Vienne in the province of Touraine. The date of his birth is wholly uncertain: it has been put by tradition and by authorities long subsequent to his death as 1483, 1490, and 1495. There is nothing in the positive facts of his life which would not suit tolerably well with any of these dates; most 17th-century authorities give the earliest, and this also accords best with the

age of the eldest of the Du Bellay brothers, with whom Rabelais was at school. In favour of the latest it is urged that if Rabelais was born in 1483 he must have been fortyseven when he entered at Montpellier, and proportionately and unexpectedly old at other known periods of his life. In favour of the middle date, which has, as far as recent authorities are concerned, the weight of consent in its favour, the testimony of Guy Patin, a witness of some merit and not too far removed in point of time, is invoked, though perhaps the fact of its being a via media has really had most to do with the adoption. The only contribution which need be made here to the controversy is to point out that if Rabelais was born in 1483 he must have been an old man when he died, and that scarcely even tradition speaks of him as such. And since this tradition is mentioned it may as well be observed at once that all the anecdotes of Rabelais without exception, and most of the accounts of the facts of his life, date from a period long posterior to his death and are utterly unworthy of credence. Colletet nearly a hundred years later, Antoine Leroy a full hundred, and Bernier nearly a hundred and fifty collected or invented stories which, as far as any actual authority goes, must be regarded as worthless. Bishop Huet's researches were made nearly as late as Bernier's. Throughout this article, therefore, when tradition or any similar word is used without further precision it will be understood that the statements have in themselves only conjectural validity.

tion everything depends upon tradition, and it is not With regard to his birth, parentage, youth, and educa until he was according to one extreme hypothesis thirtysix, according to the other extreme twenty-four, that we have solid testimony respecting him. In the year 1519, on the 5th of April, the François Rabelais of history emerges. The monks of Fontenay le Comte bought some property (half an inn in the town), and among their signatures to the deed of purchase is that of François Rabelais. Before this all is cloudland. It is said that he had four brothers XX. 25

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