40 HARE-HUNTING AND HARRIERS 



black hares have been met with, A black variety 

 of the common English hare was killed in coursing 

 at Enville, Lord Stamford's seat, in 1853, and other 

 specimens have been met with here and there. Hares 

 vary, of course, a good deal in colour, even in the 

 same district. Only last winter, 1902-3, in drawing 

 a small Sussex shaw with a pack of harriers, six hares 

 were driven out by hounds. Of these three were 

 peculiarly light-coloured, much more so than the 

 generality of their kind in this district. These animals 

 are very fecund, though not so much so as the ex- 

 tremely fertile rabbit. A male and female put together 

 for a year, as an experiment, by a former Lord Ribbles- 

 dale, produced sixty-eight young ones. A pair of 

 rabbits, enclosed under the same conditions, would 

 have produced offspring to the number of three hundred. 

 Still, the fecundity of the hare is so great that, given 

 a reasonable amount of protection, especially in the 

 breeding season, we should not have to lament their 

 decline in so many districts. They couple at the age 

 of twelve months, and, after a period of thirty days 

 gestation, the mother produces usually from two 

 to three, sometimes four, and even five, young 

 ones. Under ordinary conditions the mother will 

 produce two or three sets of young in the year — usually 

 between February and August, harvest time — but 

 Lord Ribblesdale's experiment indicates that, given 

 absolute immunity from the many risks and cares of 

 hare life, they can be much more fertile. The young 

 are brought forth in the usual " form," or " seat," 

 favoured by hares, and, unlike young rabbits, which, 

 produced in burrows, are born naked and blind, 

 are from parturition clothed with hair and have the 

 eyes open. This, manifestly, is a development of 

 nature suited to their more perilous position, exposed 



