344 LETVIS'S AMERICAN SPORTSMAN. 



our close proximity, and only trusted, as he had often done before, 

 that, owing to the striking semblance between his color and that of 

 the ground or surrounding herbage, he Avould escape unnoticed. 



The hare may be termed a nocturnal animal, " as it is commonly 

 at the earliest dawn, while the dew-drops still glitter on the herb- 

 age, or when the fresh verdure is concealed beneath a mantle of 

 glistening frost, that the timorous hare ventures forth in quest of 

 food, or courses undisturbed over the plains." 



Although sportsmen meet with hares in considerable numbers 

 at all hours of the day, it must be recollected that they are not 

 found feeding, but, on the contrary, are generally roused from 

 their forms, Avhere perhaps they have been crouching for hours in 

 undistui'bed repose. 



" During moonlight nights, the timorous hare may be seen 

 sporting Avith its companions in unrestrained gambols, frisking 

 with delighted eagerness around its mate, or busily engaged in 

 cropping its food." 



THEIR FOOD. 



The hare is not a very dainty animal as to the choice of her 

 food ; every thing produced upon a farm or cultivated in the 

 garden is alike palatable to her, and she not unfrequently makes 

 great havoc with the autumnal turnip and cabbage-crops ; she a"lso 

 frequents the cornfields to glean the scattered grains, and visits 

 the orchards in quest of the juicy apple. The partiality on the 

 part of the hare for the last-mentioned fruit is turned to fearful 

 account against them by those who bait their traps and snares 

 with it, for the dainty morsel thus laid in their very path seldom 

 fails to entice an unwary hare within its deceptive clutches. 



Later in the season, when food is scarce and nothing more 

 palatable is at hand, hares often become very destructive to the 

 young nurseries, by gnawing the tender bark from the fruit-trees, 

 which they greedily devour. 



Hares are fond of every description of wild fruit and berries ; 

 and it is not until after the commencement of the frost, when all 



