12 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HARE 



a form of Stro?igyIus, both barren and charged with 

 ova.' Still more recently this important matter has 

 been explored by an eminent French pathologist, M. 

 Megnin. This gentleman was induced to turn his 

 attention to the question in consequence of the out- 

 break of a severe epidemic among brown hares in 

 Alsace. Subsequently he read a paper on the subject 

 before the Paris Biological Society, in which he dia- 

 gnosed this leporine disorder as a parasitic disease, a 

 sort of pulmonary tuberculosis, in fact. It was due to 

 the presence of Strongy/iis commutatiis in the lungs of 

 the affected animals.^ It is said that a great many 

 hares succumbed to the ravages of the same disease 

 in Thuringia, in the year 1864. That such a conta- 

 gious disease may in a large measure account for the 

 scarcity of hares is perfectly true. If the fact that 

 the hare is subject to a malady like this was more 

 widely known, perhaps we should often hear of some- 

 what similar outbreaks. The best remedy for such 

 a disaster would, I imagine, be to destroy all affected 

 animals, and, after a time, to introduce an entirely new 

 strain of blood into the district. We know very little 

 about the diseases from which wild animals suffer. 

 In confinement their maladies are connected more 



' Nature^ vol. xxix. p. 18. 

 * Zoologist ^ 1887, p. 424. 



