8o ODD HOURS WITH NATURE 



and were the chief enemy of all lesser animals 

 capable of furnishing them with a meal. It may 

 thus be said in no very fanciful sense that in the 

 long legs of the modern hare we have a record 

 of the activity of the ancient wolf, which played 

 the part of natural selection on all those hares 

 which did not evolve the needed length of bone 

 and strength of sinew to escape. 



It is not only the swiftness of the Jiare that 

 speaks eloquently of a prolonged course of school- 

 ing in which the schoolmaster was a swift chaser. 

 In running before a dog a hare shows itself a 

 perfect bundle of tricks, all aimed at delaying a 

 pursuer. Instinctively it selects ground which is 

 more difficult to the dog than to itself, and it 

 cleverly leads for obstacles which it can run under, 

 but which the larger pursuer has to surmount. 

 The most characteristic point in the hare's strategy 

 of escape is, however, its invariable choice of the 

 uphill line. If there is an inclination in the coun- 

 try over which the hare is being chased it will go up 

 it, and in an uphill run the great length of its hind 

 legs give it an advantage which is generally quite 

 decisive. This instinct, though common to the 

 whole family of hares, is most strikingly mani- 

 fested in the case of the blue or variable hare of 

 the Highlands. On most Highland properties these 

 hares are the objective of a grand annual hunt, in 

 which they are driven towards the guns. But it 

 is absolutely useless to attempt to drive them down- 

 hill and the easiest thing in the world to drive them' 

 up. The beaters are under no necessity, as is 

 the case with other game, to advance in continuous 



