HARE 



2689 



HAREBELL 



became most widely known. None of his sto- 

 ries holds the reader's interest more closely 

 or makes a stronger appeal to the sympathies 

 than this tragedy of Tess. Lije's Little Ironies, 

 in 1894, and Jude the Obscure, in 1895, show his 

 hopeless, fatalistic view of life ; he regards men 

 as helpless victims of uncontrollable circum- 

 stances. In 1910 he was given the Order of 

 Merit. Two years later his writings were pub- 

 lished in a twenty-volume set. 



HARE, a little gnawing, four-legged animal, 

 remarkable for its keenness of sight and hear- 

 ing and for its extraordinary fleetness. Hares 

 are found in nearly all parts of the world, but 

 in America they have been commonly, though 



THE HARE 



mistakenly, called rabbits (see RABBIT). The 

 long-eared, long-legged jack rabbit of West- 

 ern plains and prairies, and the common little 

 cottontail, found throughout America, are 

 really hares. Rabbits were originally Euro- 

 pean animals only, but they have been intro- 

 duced into other countries. They are smaller 

 than hares, with shorter limbs and ears. They 

 are not as quick as their larger relatives, 

 for, to escape their enemies, they need only 

 enter their burrows. Hares do not burrow. 

 The young of rabbits, unlike those of hares, 

 are born blind and almost hairless. The Bel- 

 gian hare is really a large rabbit. 



Hares range from seventeen to twenty-five 

 inches in length. They have soft fur, usually 

 gray or brown, although that of some species 

 turns white in winter. Their tails are short, 

 bushy and upturned. When hares literally fly 

 across the ground in great leaps and bounds, 

 for which the long hind legs are especially 

 fitted, it is plainly seen that the under tail is 

 white. Black markings show on the lifted ears. 

 When the animal squats on the ground it 

 is so like its surroundings that were it not for 

 its breathing, and for its quivering whiskers, 

 it would ofttimes not be discovered, so well 

 does it become a part of nature's color scheme. 



The upper lip of the hare is split, and the 

 noses and lips of the young especially seem 

 169 



always aquiver. Their fore feet have five toes, 

 and the hind feet have four. Those hind feet 

 are capable of striking quite hard blows if the 

 animal is driven to bay. The soles of the 

 feet are hairy. The fore feet of the animal 

 cannot be used for carrying food to the mouth, 

 as can those of the squirrel. Hares feed on 

 vegetable matter only, and they are especially 

 fond of cabbage, grain and the bark of trees. 

 They feed and roam about mostly at night, 

 returning at break of day to their hollows, or 

 forms, in the grass or near a sheltered rock. 

 During nightly foraging expeditions much havoc 

 is often wrought in grain fields, vegetable gar- 

 dens and plantations. 



Hares multiply rapidly, mating when six 

 months old and producing two and three 

 broods yearly, with from two to five young in 

 each brood. At the end of a month or two 

 young hares leave their parents and shift for 

 themselves. So in sections where civilization 

 has killed off the natural enemies of these 

 rapidly-multiplying creatures, such as the coy- 

 otes, foxes, weasels, eagles, hawks, etc., men 

 must devise means to save their crops from 

 the hare family. In many places rabbit-proof 

 fences have been erected, but the animals, 

 where they have become a serious menace to 

 agriculture, are much hunted, especially in Aus- 

 tralia, not only with snares, dogs and guns, but 

 by periodical drives. All the men and boys, 

 and sometimes women and girls, of a district 

 circle about a space of a square mile or so and 

 drive the hares from their hiding places into 

 an enclosure. There they are beaten to death 

 with clubs, often as many as 20,000 having 

 been disposed of in this way in a day. The 

 month of March is the principal breeding time 

 of hares, and the crazy antics through which 

 they go at that time suggested the much used 

 phrase as mad as a March hare. 



Although the flesh of hares is rather dry, it 

 is prized for its peculiar flavor. The fur of 

 these animals, especially of those which turn 

 white in winter, is used to imitate more expen- 

 sive furs (see FUR AND FUR TRADE). F.ST.A. 



Consult Seton's Wild Animals I Have Known; 

 Sharp's Wild Life Near Home. 



HAREBELL, hair'bel, a familiar species of * 

 the bellwort, common throughout the northern 

 parts of North America, but rarely found 

 south of Canada. It grows in dry and hilly 

 localities, by the wayside and in open places 

 generally. It is a perennial, with a slender 

 stalk six to fourteen inches high. Its flowers, 

 which are generally bright blue, but sometimes 



