80 RODENTIA 



the heads of the corn. Hoping they would reappear in the 

 barley with which the field was last year cropped, a strict 

 lookout for them was kept, but to no purpose, nor were 

 they seen in any of the other fields on the farm. From 

 Mr Mackenzie's minute description, I have no doubt the 

 animals were a small colony of Harvest Mice, but it would 

 have been more satisfactory had I been able to examine a 

 specimen. 



COMMON HARE. 



Lepus timidus L. 



The Common Hare is, and seems from time immemorial to 

 have been, one of the best-known of our low-country animals. 

 The volumes of the " Old Statistical Account " testify to its 

 former abundance in the district, and no doubt the protection 

 afforded by the game-laws, and the destruction of its natural 

 enemies, tended to still further increase its numbers during 

 the present century. A turn of the tide, however, has set in 

 since the passing of the Ground Game Act in 1880, which 

 gives the farmer the right to kill hares on the land he occupies. 

 The result, which the proprietors are naturally enough deplor- 

 ing, has been a marked decrease in most localities, in some 

 amounting almost to extinction. In the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of Edinburgh, fifteen years ago, I am certain I used 

 to see twenty for every one observed at the present day. As 

 a rule, it is now only where the grounds in the proprietor's 

 own hands are of large extent that the Hare is to be seen in 

 numbers. A close time, say from some date in February to a 

 corresponding date in September, is urgently needed. 



Though mainly an inhabitant of the plains, it occurs in 

 the valleys of all our hill-ranges, extending in summer up 



