GNAWING ANIMALS — KODENTS 167 



and by the river^s side both in traps and in snares, 

 as you take a hare with hare-pipes or such like gins." 



Mr. Harting refers to the treatise on ' Agriculture 

 by John Worlege^ (1669), p. 209: "The hare is no 

 great destroyer of corn, yet where there are many of 

 them the countryman may lessen their number as he 

 sees cause : either by hunting or coursing them at 

 seasonable times or by setting of hare-pipes where 

 he finds their haunts, or by tracing them in the 

 snow." 



Mr. Drane has recorded, in a note to Mr. Millais, 

 a curious habit of the hare. When warm, quite 

 well and happy, " it will have a spasmodic attack 

 convulsing the whole body, which seems exactly like 

 our sneezing. It sneezes violently but without noise 

 of any kind — just as one would do, say, in church — 

 by keeping the mouth shut. If the hare sneezed 

 aloud it would betray its presence to the enemy." 



Speaking of the attitudes of the hare Mr. Drane 

 says : " But perhaps the prettiest thing of all is to 

 see it clean its ears. It puts its head on one side, 

 pulls down its ear, and passes its two paws over it 

 most strikingly like a lady dressing her hair. It 

 can stand quite perpendicular, without support, upon 

 its hind toes, and even advance some steps in that 

 position, balancing itself by holding out its fore 

 limbs horizontally. Its leaps are remarkable for 

 their height, grace, and agility. It habitually over- 

 leaps its object and comes down upon it with a 

 curved descent as beautifully as an antelope, thus 

 contrasting with the cat, which scarce jumps up to 

 the necessary height, whilst the hare overleaps it." 



