STUDIES IN HARE LIFE 15 



to the number of leverets produced by the hare in the 

 year. A friend of mine, who has opened a great 

 many doe hares, assures me that only a single leveret 

 is usually produced at a birth. Others consider that 

 it is only young female hares of the year that drop 

 single young ones ; and they contend that old hares 

 drop two or three leverets not uncommonly. Five 

 is, apparently, the maximum of leverets ever dropped 

 by English hares ; but the reproduction of a greater 

 number is not impossible. 



The rates at which most wild animals and birds 

 increase seem to be governed in the main by their 

 relative food supplies. These, taken together with the 

 difficulties which such individuals have had to over- 

 come, before they succeeded in propagating their own 

 kind, enable us to anticipate, however imperfectly, 

 their probable numbers. Colonel Fielden found that 

 the Polar hare produces no fewer than eight young 

 ones. This remarkable circumstance may be explained 

 by the relatively abundant supply of food during a 

 brief Arctic summer. A stern necessity also exists 

 that many individuals should enter the world, since 

 the young leverets are eagerly sought after by their 

 natural enemy, the Arctic fox. But be this as it may, 

 our English hare is usually satisfied to multiply her 

 race on a more modest scale. The doe, if adult, 



