THE COMMON OR BROWN HARE 283 



have learnt to imitate the voice of a leveret or the deeper notes 

 of an old hare by blowing through their hands. 1 



The instrument known as a hare-pipe has a somewhat 

 interesting history. It is mentioned in statutes dealing with 

 sport from at least the year 1389 to 1831 ; 2 and most writers 

 on sport and natural history, as, for instance, William Bingley, 3 

 appear to have taken it for granted that it was simply a hare- 

 call, as described above. J. O. Halliwell, however, denned it 

 as "a snare for hares," 4 and illustrated it by the following 

 quotation : 5 — 



" The next tyme thou shal be take ; 

 I have a hare pype in my purse, 

 That shall be set, Watte, for thi sake." 



That Halliwell was right is shown by an entry found by Mr 

 Walter Rye 7 in the Court Rolls of Burnham, Norfolk, that 

 in the 24th year of the reign of King Henry the Sixth 

 (1445) certain individuals were presented for, amongst other 

 things, using snares called "hare pypes." Again, in a 

 Middlesex ordinance of 1512, 8 prohibiting the capture of 

 hares in nets or other engines called " Harpipes " until the 

 Feast of St George (23rd April), the hare-pipe is compared 

 with, but clearly distinguished from a net. Scherren 9 drew 

 attention to an old description of a hare-pipe, 10 which leaves 

 no possible doubt as to its true nature. It was a noose, 

 pegged at one end to the ground, and differing only from an 

 ordinary snare in having a hollow stick or pipe of elder wood 

 threaded on it, so that when a hare thrust its head into the 

 noose and began to struggle, the pipe was drawn up to the 

 throat, causing strangulation. 



1 Scherren, Field, 12th February 1910, 290. 



2 13 Richard II., stat. i., c. 13, to 1 & 2 William IV. c. 32, when previous game 

 laws were repealed (Harting). 



3 See also E. D. Cuming, Field, 6th May 1905, 762, quoting from William 

 Taplin's Sporting Dictionary, i., 394, 1803. 



4 Diet. Archaisms and Provincialisms, ed. 6, 1904, 434. 



5 Op. cit., 406, under Go-Bet, from MS., Cantab. Ff. v. 48, f. no. 

 An old name for a hare ; see above, p. 253. 



7 Field, 13th June 1908, 982. 



8 E. T. Howson and G. T. Warner's Harrow School, 1898, 6. 



9 Field, 1st April 1905, 557 ; 20th April 1907, 647. 



10 By L. M. (= Leonard Mascall), in A Booke of fishing with Hooke and Line, 

 printed by John Wolfe for Edward White, in Paules, 1590, 62, also figure. 



