On the Northern Hare. 375 



sued or not. This habit of thumping on the earth is common to 

 most hares and rabbits. We have particularly noticed it in the 

 domesticated rabbit, [L. cuniculus,) and in our common gray- 

 rabbit. They are more particularly in the habit of doing it on 

 moonlight nights ; it is indicative either of fear or anger, and is 

 a frequent action among the males when they meet in combat. 

 During cold weather this hare retires to its form at early dawn, 

 or shelters itself under the thick foliage of fallen tree tops, parti- 

 cularly those of the pine and hemlock. It occasionally retires to 

 the same cover for a number of nights in succession, but this 

 habit is by no means common ; and the sportsman who expects 

 on some succeeding day to find this animal in the place from 

 which it was once started is likely to be disappointed ; although 

 we are not aware that any other of our species of hare are so 

 attached to particular and beaten paths through the woods, as 

 the one now under consideration. It nightly pursues these paths, 

 not only during the deep snows of w^inter, but for a period of 

 several years, if not killed or taken, wandering through them even 

 during summer. We have seen a dozen caught at one spot, in 

 snares composed of horse-hair or brass wire, in the course of a 

 winter, and when the snow had disappeared, and the spring was 

 advanced, others were still captured in the same way, and in the 

 same paths. 



The period of gestation in this species is believed to be, (al- 

 though we cannot speak with positive certainty,) about six weeks. 

 Two females which we domesticated, and kept in a warren, pro- 

 duced young, one on the tenth and the other on the fifteenth of 

 May; one had four, and the other six leverets, which were depo- 

 sited on a nest of straw, the inside of which was lined with a 

 considerable quantity of hair plucked from their bodies. They 

 succeeded in rearing all their young but one, which was killed by 

 the male of a common European rabbit. They were not again 

 gravid during that season. Ill health, and more important 

 studies, required us to be absent for six months, and when we 

 returned, all our pets had escaped to the woods, therefore we 

 could not satisfactorily finish the observations on their habits in 

 confinement, which had interested and amused us in many a 

 leisure hour. 



We, however, think it probable that the females in their wild 

 state may produce young twice during the season. Those refer- 

 red to above were much harassed by other sj^ecies which were 



