LEPUS 241 



recently started a hare, or stepped over its form ; the same 

 superstition is prevalent in Norway, where, lest a pregnant 

 woman should see it and like evil consequences result, a hare's 

 nose is always cut off directly it is killed. 



The hare and domestic cat are often associated either by 

 name (as "puss") or in legends, the latter generally not to 

 their credit, since both commonly figure as the servants or 

 companions of witches. E. R. Alston {Zoologist, 1867, 921) 

 quoted from Simrock {Handbuch der deutscken Mythologie, 1855, 

 488), to show that the saying "letting the cat out of the bag " 

 is connected with the German superstition that you may obtain 

 money from the devil by tying a black cat in a bag, secured by 

 ninety-nine knots, and selling it to the fiend as a hare at a 

 church door at midnight. But, as soon as the bargain is struck, 

 you must fly with all haste, for, if you reach not the shelter of 

 a Christian roof ere the fraud be discovered, you are lost for 

 ever. The hare, like the cat, was a common form for a witch to 

 assume, and Alston printed the charms to effect the transforma- 

 tion either way used by Isabel Gowdie, who was convicted of 

 witchcraft in Nairnshire in 1662 {Zoologist, 1867, 977, from 

 Chambers s Domestic Annals of Scotland, 1858, ii., 287). 



The animal appears also in ancient pharmacies, and some 

 wonderful remedies in which it plays an important part may be 

 found in Topsel, Gervase Markham, and doubtless many 

 other works. 



There was a curious Devonshire village custom, now extinct, 

 called the "hare-hunt," which was intended to ridicule a man 

 who submitted to a rough woman's tongue (Baring-Gould's 

 Red Spider, 1887, xxiv., in Dial. Diet.). 



A strange fiction, that hares having no eyelids, or only 

 very short ones, sleep with open eyes, was at one time very 

 widely accepted, and still appears in the works of popular 

 writers. Although not found in Aristotle, the belief is very 

 ancient and runs through the works of many of the late Latin 

 and Greek writers. Topsel had it evidently from Gesner, and 

 Daniel repeated it in his Rural Sports. It may possibly be 

 traceable to a remark of Xenophon's (Cynegeticiis, v., 26) 

 that there are many reasons why hares have bad sight : 

 their eyes project, and the eyelids are not sufficiently 



