of Animals to secure Warmth. 503 



once occasion to cross the wild mountainous tract on the north- 

 east boundary of Ayrshire, after a heavy fall of snow, which a 

 subsequent frost had hardened on the surface into a crust suffi- 

 cient to bear the foot without sinking. For several miles I did 

 not see a living creature; and even the hardy raven, that might 

 have fared sumptuously on the hapless sheep, many of which 

 had fallen victims to the weather, seemed to have abandoned 

 its summer haunts for the warmer vicinity perhaps of the sea- 

 coast. On crossing a small holm by the side of a brook, the 

 water of which I could hear running, though it was mantled over 

 with snow and invisible, I was not a little startled, alarmed, 

 indeed, by a hare dashing through between my legs, and 

 almost upsetting me, and I found I had actually stepped over 

 her/orm before she was roused. The ancients had a notion 

 that the hare sleeps with its eyes open* ; and hence, Horus 

 Apollo says, the Egyptians pictured a sleeping hare as the 

 hieroglyphic of what was obvious. 



1 The Greeks,' says Gesner, * had a common proverb (Layer 

 xa0et;$ov), " a sleeping hare," for a dissembler or counterfeit, 

 because the hare sees when she sleeps ; for this is an admirable 

 and rare work of nature, that all the residue of her bodily parts 

 take their rest, but the eye standeth continually sentinel f .' 

 The hare in question, however, must have been in a profounder 

 sleep than usual, tempted, perhaps, by the supposed security 

 of its retreat in this almost untrodden wilderness. Upon 

 examining the /orra, I found it as neatly rounded as a bird's 

 nest, and of considerable depth, the foundation being a thick 

 tussock of withered rush (Juncus maximus), well lined with 

 bent, not carried thither, it would appear, but grown upon the 

 spot, and only beat down and arranged into a snug, circular, 

 basket-like cavity, just sufficient to contain the little animal, 

 when coiled up, to sleep. I could not ascertain whether it 

 had been quite open above, or partly covered with bent and 

 rushes, and curtained with snow ; but I think the latter most 

 probable, for had there been a speck of darker colour than the 

 uniform white surface around me- before I came to the spot, I 



* Gesner, Hist. Anim,, by Toplis, p. 208. 

 t Ibid., p. 209. 



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