whei 



BROWN HARE. 



when he may enter a Rabbit burrow temporarily. He relies 

 upon his russet coat harmonising generally with his surround- 

 ings ; and content with a slight depression among the grass 

 known as a " form," he sits all day and surveys the landscape* 

 ever ready to use his powerful limbs when his keen senses tell 

 him there is danger near. At dusk he goes abroad to feed, and 

 returns to the form at dawn. To break the continuity of scent, 

 when he is leaving his form, and again when returning to it, he 

 will suddenly turn at right angles to his former course and 

 make a prodigious leap fifteen feet or more to the top of a 

 bank, then take another long bound, perhaps into marshy 

 ground where the scent will not lie, and repairing to the feeding- 

 ground feel safe from being tracked by Fox or Polecat. He 

 always adopts this leaping trick, also the plan of doubling on 

 his track, which has been the admiration and vexation of the 

 hunter from old times. Shakespeare has told at some length 



41 How he outruns the winds, and with what care 

 He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles : 

 The many musets through the which he goes 

 Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes." 



As he courses across the fields you get the impression that he 

 is longer than the measurement given above ; the impression 

 is due to the length of the hind legs extended in running, and 

 from which he especially gets the advantage over pursuers 

 when the course lies uphill. He is a good swimmer, and often 

 crosses rivers in order to reach a better feeding-ground, to 

 avoid pursuit, or to seek a mate. Hares have been known to 

 cross the Trent in numbers, where it was two hundred yards 

 wide, in order to reach a field of carrots on the further side ; 

 and Yarrel saw one cross an arm of the sea a mile broad. 



The "form " is made in rank grass among thickets of gorse 

 and briar, or in the open field where the ground is dry beneath 

 it. It takes and retains the shape of the animal's body, and 

 may be used for a long period. Here the doe brings forth her 



