COMMON HARE. 199 



The Hare, though so nearly allied to the Rab- 

 bet as to make the general descriptive distinction 

 not very, easy, is yet of different habits and pro- 

 pensities, and never associates with the latter ani- 

 mal. If taken very young, the Hare may be 

 successfully tamed, and in that state shews a con- 

 siderable degree of attachment to its benefactors, 

 though it continues shy to those whose presence 

 it has not been accustomed to. Mr. White, in his 

 History of Selboume, relates an instance which 

 happened in that village, of a young leveret 

 suckled and nursed by a Cat, which received it 

 very early under her protection, and continued to 

 guard it with maternal solicitude till it was grown 

 to a considerable size. Mous. Sonnini, in his 

 notes to Buffon's Natural History, assures us that 

 he himself kept a tame Hare, which used gene- 

 rally to repose itself by the fire in winter between 

 two large Angora cats, and was also on terms of 

 equal friendship with a hound. In this state of 

 domesticity the hare, like other quadrupeds, is 

 subject to a prolongation of the teeth, which ex- 

 ceed their proper bounds, unless the animal be 

 furnished with some hard substances on which to 

 exercise them at intervals. This extraordinary 

 prolongation of the teeth, as Dr. Pallas has justly 

 observed, furnishes an irrefragable argument 

 against Mr. Hunter's doctrine with respect to the 

 growth of these organs. 



A most singular variety of this animal is some- 

 times found, which is furnished with rough and 

 slightly branched horns, bearing a considerable 



