COWPER'S THREE TAME HARES 49 



wheat-straw, is another of their dainties ; they will 

 feed greedily upon oats, but, if furnished with clean 

 straw, never want them : it serves them also for a bed. 

 and, if shaken up daily, will be kept sweet and dry 

 for a considerable time. They do not indeed require 

 aromatic herbs, but will eat a small quantity of them 

 with great relish, and are particularly fond of the 

 plant called musk. They seem to resemble sheep in 

 this ; that if their pasture be too succulent they are 



ico very subject to the rot ; to prevent which, I always 

 made bread their principal nourishment, and, filling 

 a pan with it cut into small squares, placed it every 

 evening in their chambers, for they feed only at 

 evening and in the night. During the winter, when 

 vegetables were not to be got, I mingled this mess of 

 bread with shreds of carrot, adding to it the rind of 

 apples cut extremely thin for, though they are fond 

 of the paring, the apple itself disgusts them. These, 

 however, not being a sufficient substitute for the juice 



170 of summer herbs, they must at this time be supplied 

 with water, but so placed that they cannot overset it 

 into their beds. I must not omit that occasionally 

 they are much pleased with twigs of hawthorn and of 

 the common briar, eating even the very wood when it 

 is of considerable thickness. 



Bess, I have said, died young. Tiney lived to be 

 nine years old, and died at last (I have reason to think) 

 of some hurt in his loins by a fall. Puss is still living, 

 and has just completed his tenth year, discovering no 



iso signs of decay, nor even of age, except that he is 

 grown more discreet and less frolicsome than he was. 

 I cannot conclude without observing that I have lately 

 introduced a dog to his acquaintance, a spaniel that 



