COWPER'S THREE TAME HARES 45 



the consequence was that in a short time I had as 



20 many leverets offered to me as would have stocked 

 a paddock. I undertook the care of three, which it is 

 necessary that I should here distinguish by the names 

 I gave them Puss, Tiney, and Bess. Notwithstand- 

 ing the two feminine appellatives, I must inform you 

 that they were all males. Immediately commencing 

 carpenter, I built them houses to sleep in, three sepa- 

 rate apartments, with an earthen pan under the per- 

 forated floor of each, which being duly emptied and 

 washed, they were thus kept perfectly sweet and 



so clean. In the daytime they had the range of a hall, 

 and at night retired each to his own bed, never 

 intruding into that of another. 



Puss grew presently familiar, would leap into my Puss. 

 lap, raise himself upon his hinder feet, and bite the 

 hair from my temples. He would suffer me to take 

 him up and to carry him about in my arms ; and has 

 more than once fallen fast asleep upon my knee. He 

 was ill three days, during which time I nursed him, 

 kept him apart from his fellows that they might not 



40 molest him (for, like many other wild animals, they 

 persecute one of their own species that is sick), and, 

 by constant care and trying him with a variety of 

 herbs, restored him to perfect health. No creature 

 could be more grateful than my patient after his 

 recovery ; a sentiment which he most significantly 

 expressed by licking my hand, first the back of it, 

 then the palm, then every finger separately, then 

 between all the fingers, as if anxious to leave no part 

 of it unsaluted ; a ceremony which he never performed 



50 but once again upon a similar occasion. Finding him 

 extremely tractable, I made it my custom to carry 



