The Hare 



in the case of the brown species. The summer coat is 

 a grey of various shades — a buff or light brown being 

 quite common, but when ice and snow invade the 

 highlands the fur turns pure white, with the exception 

 of that on the ears. These are nicely marked in black at 

 the tips. Throughout the whole year the underparts 

 retain their white colouring. The head of this hare 

 is not so flat as in the brown species, while the ears 

 are shorter in proportion. Both the Brown and 

 Mountain Hares are equal so far as size is concerned, 

 but the latter has not so much length of hind-leg as its 

 compeer. 



Although thus handicapped, as it would seem, the 

 hare of the hills is as fleet of limb as the denizen 

 of the lowlands. For food, in the warm months of 

 the year, it finds abundance of grasses upon the 

 hill-sides and in the shaded corries where the deer 

 roam. When autumn comes there are the heather fields 

 at its disposal, and during the inclement weather 

 around Christmas it crops the lichens and gleans 

 the pine-seeds in the recesses of the forest. 



Given a wild waste of land, a pair of Rabbits, and 

 solitude, the face of the landscape may be visibly 

 altered. A perusal of any of the modern treatises on 

 the fauna of the Shires will show that not a few 

 localities were of recent times practically free of this 

 wild rodent. Then, by some erratic movement on the 

 part of the individual, the Rabbit was introduced, and 



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