292 THE COMMON HARE. 



utmost rigour, occasionally hunting or shooting 

 them for the use of their family, and not unfre- 

 quently for sale*. 



Male and female Hares may be distinguished 

 when running -in the fields, but particularly when 

 they are hunted, by the following marks. A buck 

 Hare is known, on first starting from his seat, by 

 the whiteness of his hinder parts. His head also 

 is shorter, his ears are more grey, his shoulders are 

 redder, and his body is smaller than those of the 

 doc. It has been remarked by some sportsmen, 

 that if a Hare, in its seat, has its ears lying on its 

 shoulders, close to each other, it is a male ; and 

 that if they are laid on each side of the neck, it is a 

 female. A Hare that is hunted to its form along 

 highways, and feeds faraway from cover, and makes 

 its doublings and crossings wide and large, is a 

 buck; for the doe generally keeps close to the side 

 of some cover: and when she goes to feed in corn- 

 fields, she seldom crosses over the furrows, but fol- 

 lows the track of them. When does are hunted, they 

 frequently turn, use many stratagems, and seldom 

 leave the country round their seat; whilst the buck, 

 after two or three turns about his form, runs 

 straight forward for four or five miles, and then 

 probably squats down in some place where he has 

 before preserved himself. 



* Daniel's Rural Sports, i. p. 322. 



A young 



