CINAWING ANIMALS RODENTS 163 



compressed, thus presenting the least possible resis- 

 tance to the air. With its long and powerful hind 

 legs the animal advances by enormous leaps, its 

 strong claws enabling it to get a firm hold of the 

 ground as fulcrum. These leaps when the animal is 

 running at ease are about four feet in length, but 

 under the influence of fear its stride is extended to 

 ten and sometimes twelve feet, and it has been said 

 that a hare will jump fen ditches twenty to twenty- 

 five feet in width. 



Both the cat and the hare have very flexible back- 

 bones, which enable them to twist their bodies 

 and alter the direction of their course with great 

 ease even when going at a high rate of speed. This 

 action is known as '^ doubling/' at which the hare 

 is an adept, and it gives the creature an immense 

 advantage when being chased by a stiff-backboned 

 animal like the dog. The long hind legs enable the 

 hare to go rapidly up hill, but chased down-hill hares 

 frequently topple head over heels. Its speed is the 

 hare's only means of defence, but even this would 

 not save it from extermination were it not for its 

 extreme fecundity. Hares breed from April to 

 August, as a rule, but in mild seasons leverets have 

 been found almost in every month of the year. The 

 pairing takes place in February and March, when 

 the extraordinary courting antics of the buck have 

 given rise to the belief that he is mad, and to the 

 saying, '^ As mad as a March hare.'' There is con- 

 siderable fighting also at this season among the bucks 

 for their mates, and so severe are the blows dealt with 

 the hind legs and so fatal the drumming of the fore 



