48 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HARE 



The hoary appearance of this hare is due to 

 numerous white hairs which extend along the entire 

 length of the animal, from the shoulders to the flanks. 

 The markings of pied quadrupeds are often sym- 

 metrically arranged, but Mr. Whitaker records a hare 

 ' which had the whole of one side from nose to rump 

 pure white, and on the other side a patch of white as 

 big as one's hand behind the shoulder.' This animal 

 was killed in a wood in Nottinghamshire in the month 

 of January. 



A pretty variety of the hare was killed upon the 

 borders of Hants and Dorset in the autumn of 1889. 

 Mr. Corbin states that it was a male, and not full- 

 grown. ' The ordinary brown colour was replaced by 

 silvery grey, darker on the back and paler beneath, 

 interspersed with darker but white-tipped hairs, giving 

 it a singularly grizzled appearance.' The rarest variety 

 of colour in the hare is the pure black form. A list 

 of the black hares that have been killed in Great 

 Britain would be a very short one. One of the 

 number was caught as a tiny leveret in Epping Forest, 

 some thirty years ago, i.e. in June 1865 ; this was 

 kept alive as a pet. Another black hare used to 

 perambulate the North of England at one time, as 

 a distinguished performer in a so-called ' Happy 

 Family.' 



