THE COMMON OR BROWN HARE 287 



tion lasts only for thirty days, then one litter would run more 

 closely on the heels of its predecessor. 



Judging from the habits of the Irish Hare, the maternal 

 feeling rapidly weakens, and D. P. Blaine 1 saw "what we 

 believe to be the mother, driving a leveret or two away from 

 her." For the short time 2 that the young remain with the dam 

 she is an anxious mother, remaining in their vicinity, remov- 

 ing them in her mouth if discovered, and, if necessary, so far 

 forgetting her timidity as to charge and drive away intruders. 

 Mr G. Eames, 3 then Master of the Cotley Harriers, Chard, 

 vouched for an instance when a doe ran round a man who 

 had picked up a leveret, grunting and stamping her displeasure 

 until it was released; and Mr Walter 4 relates that he was 

 once charged three times by a hare, her conduct being 

 explained by the discovery of a leveret lying a few yards 

 away. The killing of a rook by a hare at Lockerbie, Scotland, 

 was no doubt also due to a fit of maternal fury. 5 



An observation of Mr W. D. Dovaston's is that when 

 leaving the young the doe makes one big leap, covering as 

 much as fifteen feet when measured on the snow. 



It is probably the early dispersal of the newly born leverets 

 that has caused hares to be usually regarded as not very 

 prolific animals. 6 Most observers have met with small numbers 

 of leverets together up to at most four ; but larger litters of five, 

 six, or even more, have been occasionally reported. 7 



1 Encyc. of Sport, 1875, 508. 



2 Daniel (op. cit.) wrote that it would not be possible for the mother to suckle her 

 young for more than a short time, or her udder would be too big. Whether this 

 suggestion be true or not, it is obvious that the shortest possible suckling period 

 would be the most satisfactory. 



3 Field, 1 6th May 1908, 831 ; for a similar instance, see John Wilkes, Field, 22nd 

 October 1892, 613. 



4 Op. cit., 177. 5 J. Cumming MacDona, Field, 2nd June 1883, 742. 



6 In order to survive a hare has to be prolific, for all carnivorous beasts and birds kill 

 it or its leverets when they get a chance, and, except in defence of its young, the idea 

 of resistance never seems to enter its head. But Blaine's statement (op. cit., 508), that 

 a single pair enclosed in a walled garden had increased after twelve months to fifty- 

 seven, is incredible, and evidently an exaggeration. 



7 The following records of over five at a birth are worth preserving, but it would 

 be too much to say that all are authentic — six in one form, Elchies, Strathspey, Elgin 

 (Scotland), photo sent to editor by C. Harrison, Field, 8th December 1906, 991 ; 

 six embryos, Norfolk, C. T. Robinson, on the authority of his father, loc. cit.; six, 

 Kent, R. Pembrook, Field, 112th August 1893, 245 j six (with exhausted mother), 



