36 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HARE 



of hares, I would draw attention to a fact which 



does not seem to be generally recognised, that the 

 hare is an excellent S2vi?mner, and is quite at home 

 in either fresh or salt water. Not that it likes to 

 enter either element. As a rule hares avoid wetting 

 their fur. 



If they find themselves obliged to cross a stream 

 in shifting their feeding grounds, they generally search 

 out the narrowest ford, even though the water to be 

 crossed should consist only of a small burn or fellside 

 beck. But it is exceptions that enforce the rule. For 

 example, a hare has been seen to swim the river Elbe 

 in a long reach, where the river is at least i8o yards 

 broad. This involved her swimming more than eighty 

 yards through very rough water. ' A hare intending 

 to mislead its pursuers has been seen spontaneously 

 to quit its seat, and to proceed to a pond at the 

 distance of nearly a mile, and having washed itself 

 push off again through a quantity of rushes. It has, 

 too, been known, when pursued to fatigue by dogs, to 

 thrust another hare from its seat and squat itself down 

 in its place. Jacques du Fouillouse has seen hares 

 swim successively through two or three ponds of which 

 the smallest was eighty paces round.' * Yarrell has 

 placed on record an experience of the swimming 



' Loudoun's Magazine of Nattiral Hisloiy, vol. iv. p. 143. 



