230 ARTIFICES OF ANIMALS. 



female. These young animals, who are brought up ind nour- 

 ished together, acquire a mutual affection so strong, that they 

 never depart from each other. In a week or two after birth, 

 the fawns are able to follow their mother. When threatened 

 with danger, she hides them in a close thicket ; and, so strong 

 is her parental affection, that, in order to preserve her offspring 

 from destruction, she presents herself to be chased. 



Hares possess not, like rabbits, the art of digging retreats 

 n the earth. But they neither want instinct sufficient for 

 their own preservation, nor sagacity for escaping their ene- 

 mies. They form seats or nests on the surface of the ground, 

 where they watch, with the most vigilant attention, the ap- 

 proach of any danger. In order to deceive, they conceal 

 themselves between clods of the same i oior with their own 

 hair. When pursued, they first run with rapidity, and then 

 double or return upon their former steps. From the place 

 of starting, the females run not so far as the males ; but 

 they double more frequently. Hares hunted in the place 

 where they are brought forth, seldom remove to a great dis- 

 tance from it, but return to their form ; and when chased two 

 days successively, on the second day they perform the same 

 doublings they had practised the day before. When hares 

 run straight out to a great distance, it is a proof that they are 

 strangers. " I have seen a hare," Fouilloux remarks, " so 

 sagacious, that, after hearing the hunter's horn, he started 

 from his form, and though at the distance of a quarter of a 

 league, went to swim in a pool, and lay down on the rushes 

 in the middle of it, without being chased by the dogs. I have 

 seen a hare, after running two hours before the dogs, push 

 another from his seat, and take possession of it. I have seen 

 others swim over two or three ponds, the narrowest of which 

 was eighty paces broad. I have seen others, after a two 

 hours* chase, run into a sheepfold, and lie down among them. 

 I have seen others, when hard pushed, run in among a flock 

 of sheep, and would not leave them. I have seen others, 

 after hearing the noise of the hounds, conceal themselves in 

 the earth. I have seen others run up one side of a hedge, 

 and return by the other, when there was nothing else between 

 them and the dogs. I have seen others, after running half an 

 hour, mount an old wall six feet high, and clap down in a hole 

 covered with ivy. Lastly, I have seen others swim over a 

 river, of about eighty paces broad, oftener than twice, in the 

 length of two hundred paces." 



The fox has, in all ages and nations, been celebrated for 



