HARES, AXn IIARi:.Hi\\TIXG. 183 



So the wise hares 

 Oft quit their scats, lost some more curious eye 

 Should mark tiicir hauuts, and by dark treach'rous wiles 

 Plot their destruction ; or perchance in hopes 

 Of plenteous forage, near the ranker mead 

 Or matted blade, wary and close they sit. 

 When spring shines forth, season of love and joy, 

 In the moist marsh, 'mong beds of rushes hid, 

 They cool their boiling blood. When summer suns 

 Bake the cleft earth, to thick wide waving fields 

 Of corn full-grown they lead their helpless young : 

 But when autumnal torrents and fierce rains 

 Deluge the vale, in the dry crumbling bank 

 Their forms they delve, and cautiously avoid 

 The dripping covert : yet, when winter's cold 

 Their limbs benumbs, thither with speed return'd 

 In the long grass they skulk, or. shrinking, creep 

 Among the wither'd leaves ; thus changing still 

 As fancy prompts them, or as good invites. 



Somervilc. 



Hares feed by night, chiefly on herbs, leaves, fruits and grain. They are 

 particularly partial to parsley, and plants which yield a milky juice. In 

 winter they eat tlie bark of trees, except that of the alder and lime. During 

 the day they lie and sleep in their forms; they sleep a great deal, and always 

 with their eyes open, having neither eye-lids nor eye-brows. It has been 

 noticed that hares are stronger after Christmas than before ; they are in 

 better condition and run straighter. The months of January, February, and 

 March are the best for sport, and during the two latter months, jack hares often 

 travel great distances from their own ground, and if, by good hick, we can get 

 one of these afoot, we may have a good straight run of five or six miles. 



Hares usually stick to the country they were born in; hence they 

 commonly return to the field from whicii they were put up, making rings of 

 greater or lesser extent according as scent is good or bad. Accident, how- 

 ever, sometimes produces a straight run from one of these ringing hares. 

 If they get turned at a fence into the teeth of the hounds, and go through a 

 bad minute before they can dodge and get away, more especially if one of 

 the hounds gets a mouthful of fur, and also sometimes if in a run they get 

 coursed by a stray sheep dog, they will go straight away; when once out of 

 their own country they will go for several miles. 



The natural destiny of the hare is to die a violent death ; but some few 

 die of diseases. In very wet seasons they a|)pear to suffer from dro[)sy, or 

 some disease of the liver becomes prevalent, and dead hares are fountl lying 

 about here and there in the country. The number of hares dying a natural- 

 death must, after all, be very limited, as if an unfortunate hare became 

 weakened by disease, it would surely fall a prey to some prowling beast 

 before it had time to "get on with its dying." 



