MAMMALIA — AMERICAN HARE. 257 



thirty-one days, and will produce five, six, and sometimes seven or eight at 

 a birth. Like the doe-hare, she has a double matrix, and, of consequence, 

 can have in her womb, at the same time, two separate litters. It appears, 

 however, that superfnetations are less frequent in this species than in that 

 of the hare. 



A few days before they bring forth, they dig a fresh burrow, not in a right 

 line, but in a crooked direction, at the bottom of which they make an exca- 

 vation ; after which they tear a quantity of hair from their bellies, and 

 make a kind of bed for the use of their little ones. For the first two days 

 they never quit them ; they never stir abroad, unless forced to do so from 

 necessity, and return as soon as ever they have taken their nourishment. 

 At this season, they eat much, and very quick ; and thus they tend and 

 suckle their young for more than six weeks. Till then, the buck does 

 not know them, nor does he enter the burrow which the doe has dug. 

 Often, even when she quits it and leaves her little ones behind, she stops 

 up the entry to it with earth, wet with her urine ; but when they begin to 

 venture to the edge of the hole, and to eat groundsel and other herbs, which 

 the doe picks out for them, the buck begins to know them, to take them 

 between his paws, to endeavor to give a gloss to their hair, to lick their 

 eyes ; and all of them, in succession, partake equally of his cares. 



Though rabbits are found in America, they are not natives of it, but are 

 descended from those which have been brought from Europe. The animal 

 vulgarly called rabbit in this country, is the American hare, which we shall 

 next describe. 



THE AMERICAN HARE.' 



This animal is found throughout this country, to as far north as the 

 vicinity of Carlton House, in the Hudson's Bay country. According to the 

 statement of Hearne, " they are not plentiful in the eastern parts of the 

 northern Indian country, not even in those parts that are situated among 



1 Lepus Americanus, Gmel. 



33 



