708 



HARE. 



race of animal*. Tliere are at least three species. 

 The common name of all the species in the countries 

 which they inhabit is Pika, 



ALPINE PIKA (L. Alpinus). This species has been 

 called the Alpine hare by Pennant and others, so that 

 care must be taken not to confound it with the Alpine 

 hare properly so called. Its general colour is reddish 

 yellow interspersed with much longer hairs of a black 

 colour. The part round the mouth is ash colour, and 

 the under parts of the legs and the ears brown, the 

 latter being rounded in their outlines. The length is 

 only about nine inches and a half. 



This species is very abundant in Siberia, where it 

 is well known to the hunters, though Pallas was the 

 first who introduced it properly to the notice of zoo- 

 logists. It is found on the slopes of the steepest 

 mountains, and even on the most inaccessible rocks ; 

 but in all situations they prefer the humid copses, in 

 which, in rocky and mountainous places especially, 

 they find abundance of herbage during the whole of 

 the summer season. They are, strictly speaking, 

 ground animals, and live indiscriminately in burrows 

 excavated by themselves, in holes of the rocks, and 

 in the hollows of decayed trees. They are not gre- 

 garious, but are found singly, or in pairs, or in families, 

 according to the season. About the middle of August 

 they begin to collect with great diligence and industry 

 their store of provisions for the winter. This consists 

 'indiscriminately of the seeds of plants, of leaves, and 

 of grasses, and" they make their magazines in the 

 earth, in the holes of rocks, or in the hollows of trees. 

 These stores are not collected by each animal for 

 itself ; for, according to the number that may be in 

 any particular locality, they unite in the labour of 

 collecting the winter store ; and it is understood that 

 so true does the collecting instinct remain while the 

 store lasts, that none of those who bore a part in the 

 labour of collecting are ever excluded from their share 

 of the magazine, neither can any stranger invade it, 

 how severely soever necessity may pinch them. These 

 magazines are often of very considerable magnitude, 

 considering the small size of the animals. They fre- 

 quently bear a considerable resemblance to a hayrick, 

 seven or eight feet, high, and about the same in dia- 

 meter ; and when they are of this size, the animals 

 form a subterranean passage from their own dwellings 

 to the store, by which they can find their way when 

 the whole is buried under the snow. These animals 

 do not, as we have hinted, commit any depredations 

 upon the stores of each other, but they often do not 

 come off so well at the hands of the Siberian hunters, 

 who, when provender for their horses fails, often 

 plunder these industrious little creatures. 



Pallas examined, with that attention which he was 

 in the habit of paying to all subjects connected with 

 the economy of nature, the stores collected against 

 the season of want by these provident animals. He 

 found that they displayed wonderful animal sagacity, 

 both in the plants which they selected and in the 

 lime at which they cut them down. There were no 

 thorny plants or ligneous stems ; and the whole 

 appeared to have been cut down at that stage of 

 their growth at which our grasses arc understood to 

 make the best hay. If grasses or other plants which 

 are intended for this purpose are cut down too 

 early, they are full of sap, which is not only taste- 

 less, but which ferments and rots the whole when 

 gathered into a heap. On the other hand, if the 

 stems of annual plants stand till the grand labour of 



the year is over by the ripening of the seeds, the 

 stems which are left are sapless and afford but little 

 nourishment. The pikas avoid both these extremes, 

 and cut down their winter store when the juice of 

 the stem has acquired its greatest maturity and sweet- 

 ness. They avoid plants which are in flower ; and 

 indeed there are very few warm-blooded animals 

 that will feed upon any plant in the time of its flower- 

 ing. Pallas adds that, though they are comparatively 

 few, those animals do mix with their more substantial 

 food a few acid plants, or plants which have a pun- 

 gent flavour of some kind or other, as if it were to 

 give a zest or relish to the rest. 



These harmless little animals are not only exposed 

 to the peril of famine by having their stores plun- 

 dered by the hunters, but they have other enemies 

 besides the human race. The weasel tribe, which 

 are very numerous in that part of the world, seek the 

 abodes of the pikas with much assiduity, and kill them 

 in great numbers ; and, as is the case with many of 

 . the warm-blooded animals in those northern coun- 

 tries, they are much infested and tormented with the 

 larvae of insects. Still the destroyers, whether mam- 

 malia or insect, appear to be as necessary for the 

 preservation of the animals under consideration as 

 we find most predatory animals are for the preserva- 

 tion of their prey. The powers of life are in all the 

 living productions of nature vigorous beyond the 

 average of the means by which they can be supported. 

 This, it should seem, is necessary for the full play of 

 the system, and the surplus of one race is the means 

 by which some other race is supported ; and the 

 wheel goes round till we find the most powerful of 

 the predatory animals becoming, in their turn, the 

 prey of the larvae of insects apparently the most 

 feeble. 



THE GREY PIKA (L. ogotonna), is a native of the 

 same countries. It is of a pale greyish colour on the 

 upper part of the body, wiih the legs yellowish and 

 the under part white. It is very common in those 

 parts of Siberia which are situated near the lake ol 

 Baikal. It is an animal of the desert, or, at all events, 

 of stony places, and does not come near those which 

 man inhabits. Fond of sandy situations. The bur- 

 rows are dry, shaped after the fashion of those of 

 rabbits, but always with two entrances, and with 

 these near heaps of stones ; and in the bottom of 

 these burrows they form for themselves comfortable 

 couches of leaves and other vegetable matters. The^ 

 are, to a rery considerable extent, nocturnal animals, 

 and not only so, but in their nightly excursions they 

 seek the most lonely places. The mountain gulleys, 

 and the narrow strips of land by the banks of river.*, 

 where they are least likely to meet with enemies, are 

 their chosen places ; and secure in these, they nibble 

 the fresh bark and buds of the shrubs. In sum- 

 mer they live upon the scanty vegetation which the 

 arid wastes of Siberia produce. As rs the case with 

 the former species, they collect stores against the 

 winter ; and the people of Siberia look upon them 

 as a kind of " weather-wisers," always concluding 

 that the storm is at hand when those little animals 

 collect their stores with more than ordinary diligence. 

 They do not collect their stores into one great maga- 

 zine, as is the case with the former species, but into 

 a number of heaps of a hemispherical shape, and 

 about a foot in diameter each, which may be seen 

 near their burrows from about the month of Septem- 

 ber through the winter but as the spring approaches 



