Varying Hare 



from brown to white occurs in the autumn and for a short time the 

 animal is somewhat 'mottled/ Then in March as the weather gets 

 warmer the snow gradually disappears from the woods, the fur 

 of the Northern hare, probably by reason of the wearing away of the 

 tips and the shedding of the long hairs gets more and more mottled 

 with brown, the change in most cases that have come under my 

 notice commencing at the back of the neck, on the feet and the under 

 surface of the body, and in an astonishingly short time the dark 

 summer coat is fairly resumed. Although belated snowstorms must 

 often give them occasion to regret the loss of their winter coats, 

 taking one year and another, the change seems to be wonderfully 

 well timed, and at most they are really no worse off than those other 

 inhabitants of the woods that wear their dark coats throughout the 

 winter. 



When the white people first made their homes in this part of the 

 country they found only these big, long-legged Northern hares 

 dwelling in the uncleared forest, never a very numerous race in 

 all probability in spite of the advantages of tremendous swiftness and 

 a coat which copied the colour of their surroundings at all times 

 of the year. 



Preyed upon by Indians, wolves and lynxes and the various 

 members of the weasel tribe, which have since been exterminated, or 

 nearly so, because of the beauty of their fur, as well as their numer- 

 ous enemies which still survive in more or less reduced numbers, the 

 coming of the white man must have proved rather an advantage than 

 an added danger to this long suffering, thin-skinned defenceless race 

 of animals, and it seems probable that they did increase in numbers to 

 a certain extent for the first two hundred years or so. As recently as 

 fifty years ago they were still common and apparently the only species 

 in Southern New Hampshire, but somewhere about that time the little 

 gray rabbit or cotton-tail made its appearance; no one could tell from 

 whence, though it seems generally to have received the title of cony 

 at first to distinguish it from the other which had always been called 

 rabbit, and though hardly one half as large and much shorter of foot 

 and even more timid and helpless, it now became evident that the 

 larger species was disappearing as the smaller increased in numbers. 



I am told that at one time, something like thirty years ago, there 

 were no white rabbits to be found within miles of this place. Then 

 they appeared and even seemed to slightly increase in numbers for a 

 few years only to vanish as before, and it has been that way ever 



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