lo NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HARE 



brown hare of the hills is presumably learning to adapt 

 herself to the altered conditions of her existence, 

 which no doubt entails greater exertion than is neces- 

 sary to the hare which makes its home in the hayfields 

 of the w^ooded manor. Dr. Fatio has ascertained 

 that the brown hare of tlie Swiss valleys ranges 

 upon the slopes of the Alpine pastures up to an 

 elevation of i,6oo or 1,700 metres. In the Grisons, 

 Professor Theobald killed a brown hare at a greater 

 elevation still, viz. at a height of 2,270 metres above 

 the sea. 



We must all have met with the bonnie brown hare 

 in a great variety of situations, from the Kentish and 

 Essex salt marshes to the wolds of Yorkshire and the 

 coalfields of Lancashire. A great change has taken 

 place in the number of hares that are annually bred 

 in England. Go where you may, one meets almost 

 universally with the same lament, that where you would 

 formerly have seen twenty or thirty hares feeding in 

 the fields on a summer evening you will now hardly 

 see a single animal. This melancholy state of things 

 seems to have been brought about mainly by the mis- 

 chievous and uncalled-for legislation of Sir William 

 Harcourt. There are other factors which may or 

 may not press hardly upon the hare. One obvious 

 point is that hares and rabbits do not thrive very 



