Not one person in a thousand realises that rabbit (no Old English source) are in any way historical way distinct from mice or weasels

Rabbits are immigrants. They appeared in England only around the thirteenth century, as imports bred for fur, but escaped to the wild like mink or coypu. Yet they have been assimilated. The point is this: not one person in a thousand realises that rabbit (no Old English source) are in any way historical way distinct from mice (O.E. mys) or weasels (O.E. weselas), while the word is accepted by all as familiar, native, English.

T. Shippey, The road to Middle-Earth (3rd edition. 2005), 78