GNAWING ANIMALS — EODENTS 165 



T can always make my hares say ' don't ' as we say 

 ' humph ' without opening our lips. This is done 

 by a quick movement of the hand, as if to seize the 

 creature suddenly. If the same movement is made 

 slowly no sound is emitted. '^ 



The same observer states that he does not think 

 adult hares call one another, but he thinks does call 

 their young with the sound " oont/' but so very 

 faintly that it would be necessary to be much nearer 

 to them than would ever be possible in a wild state 

 to detect it at all. 



We find a further instance of Mr. Drane's sacrifice 

 of his house and household goods to his hares, for he 

 says : " I had two hares in captivity which twice 

 produced young. I gave them the run of my house 

 at night : my bedroom opens on the corridor, and 

 the door is never shut at night. The parent hares 

 held high jinks upstairs and down, along the corridor, 

 and in and out of my bedroom. The little ones 

 could not keep pace at all with them and would lie 

 'perdu. Then in the unbroken silence of the night, 

 and within walls which would help to convey the 

 slightest sound, I have heard the mother hare call 

 her young by a whispered ' oont,' and have heard 

 the response in the soft tread of the little one along 

 the waxed floor, very diiferent from the distinct 

 sound made by the long hard nails of the parents. 



" Few people are probably conscious of the extreme 

 sensitiveness of hearing and smelling in the hare, 

 and I doubt not that, although inaudible to us, the 

 doe's call to her young is relatively loud." 



It was a subject of popular belief that hares do 



