242 LEPORID/E— LEPUS 



long to protect the ball, which circumstance, added to the 

 quantity of sleep that they take, renders the sight indis- 

 tinct. A curious alternative explanation was that the eye- 

 lids are certainly closed in sleep, but are so thin as not to 

 obscure the sight; and this legend has a certain underlying sub- 

 stratum of truth in the undoubted difficulty experienced in 

 finding a hare asleep. No matter how close an approach she 

 allows as she lies in her form, her eyes are always open. In 

 fact even tame hares rarely become so trustful as to allow them- 

 selves to slumber with closed eyes in the presence of man. But 

 the poet Cowper [Gentleman s Mag., June 1784, 412, etc.; 

 his epitaph on Tiney, Journ. cit., December 1794, 935), and, 

 later, Drane {Trans. Cardiff Nat. Soc., xxvii., ii., 1894-95, 

 101-109; Field, 25th March 1905, 505), found that, when 

 thoroughly docile, they close their eyes like other animals, 

 and the pupil is then much reduced in size. Drane has opened 

 an eyelid of a sleeping pet hare when the effect of the light 

 was seen to cause an expansion of the pupil of the single eye 

 even before the animal awoke. In sleep the eyes are so deeply 

 sunk in their sockets that when closed they are level with the 

 surrounding surface. When fully awake they project beyond 

 it, but the extent of the protrusion varies with the will of the 

 animal, and in the same way the extent of white conjunctiva 

 visible may vary from a considerable amount to none at all. 



Occasional reports of horned hares have been usually 

 regarded as the product of a vivid imagination. They are 

 believed to be sometimes founded on confusion with a roe- 

 buck, but more often may be perpetuated by fraud, as shown by 

 Scherren (see Field, 1st and 22nd June 1907, 870 and 1063 ; 

 also Yates, Journ. cit., 15th June 1907, 10 15), the former of 

 whom reproduced the figure of a "horned hare" after the 

 German Ridinger ( Vorstellung der wundersamsten Hirschen, 

 pi. 80). The belief in their occurrence is certainly ancient, and 

 is found in so many old writers that it is not necessary to 

 mention names. Grew {Muscmm Regalis Societatis, 1681, 25) 

 catalogued a reputed pair of such horns in the collection of the 

 Royal Society, but thought it probable that they had belonged 

 to a small deer. 



This puzzle may perhaps be explained by the experience of 



