THE HARE AND ITS WAYS 39 



with hazel eyes, weighing about 10 lb., has been 

 observed. A parti-coloured hare, says Mr. Harting,* 

 was killed near Salisbury. "It was unusually white 

 all over the face, and its hind-quarters were of a 

 silvery-grey. Its pale colour could not be attributed 

 to age, for it was a young animal, weighing about 

 5^ lbs." Mr. Holland Southerden, lately Master, 

 and now Deputy Master, of the Hailsham Harriers, 

 sends me a note of a curiously marked hare which, 

 for a couple of seasons, was familiar with this pack. 

 One side of her face was almost white, and she could 

 be readily distinguished. She was, perhaps, the 

 most clever, resourceful, and tricky animal ever 

 hunted by these hounds, on several occasions getting 

 the better of them in long runs. She usually bested 

 them at a point where several roads cross, and where 

 cottages and gardens exist. Her tactics were to 

 double quietly about this locality, working about 

 the gardens and roads, and she was repeatedly seen 

 by the cottagers " creeping about in the cabbages 

 and broccoli, and jumping about on the pavements, 

 threading the boundary hedges, and then crossing 

 over the roads very quickly." Her final exit was 

 usually made in a certain wood, about a third of a 

 mile away, abounding in rabbits. This clever hare 

 came to an untimely end. She was shot by a farmer 

 who was well acquainted with her history, but, 

 meeting her with his gun one day, and seeing the 

 wrong {i.e., the brown) side of her face, he dropped 

 her dead. On noticing her white cheek, he became 

 aware of his misfortune — he had on several occasions 

 assisted in her pursuit with harriers — and reported 

 the sad occurrence to the master of the pack. 



Albino hares are occasionally shot, and, more rarely, 



* " The Encyclopedia of Sport." 



