HARES. 97 



swam rapidly across, and scampered up the bank, where, seeing 

 my wife, who had been watching the performance, she turned 

 aside and bolted away through the garden. It was strange that 

 she should have elected to swim so broad a river in preference 

 to making her escape by either of the two sides of the field 

 which lay open to her, more especially since she had not been 

 chased or unduly disturbed in any way. The meadow is a very 

 large one, bounded on one side by the river in question, and on 

 another by a small tributary stream. The animal did not 

 appear particularly frightened either before or after her voyage. 

 Perhaps she was suffering from the insanity to which March 

 hares are proverbially supposed to be addicted. It was, certainly, 

 a somewhat eccentric and unaccountable performance. 



In the summer of 1915 — when fishing — a hare started up 

 from the opposite side of the river, and swam across not very 

 many yards from where I was, and, in that instance also, it had 

 not been scared or startled in any way, and there was nothing 

 else in the field she started from but an old piebald pony placidly 

 feeding at some distance away. What made it a still more 

 curious performance was that I had a small terrier with me which 

 was nosing about the bank on my side of the river, and the hare 

 passed only a few yards above him. 



