48 HARE-HUNTING AND HARRIERS 



but, unfortunately, this friendship is not extended 

 to others, who are treated with scant courtesy if they 

 interfere with them. They know me very well, and 

 will sniff my hand or my clothes most noticeably 

 before allowing themselves to be touched. They 

 possess keen intelligence and a dogged determination 

 that I have not seen equalled in any other animal. 

 They have a peculiar method of indicating irritation 

 or fear ; unlike rabbits, which stamp their hind feet 

 in a similar predicament, they make a loud rasping 

 or grating sound with their teeth, which is instantly 

 received by the others as a signal of alarm." 



As mad as a March hare has long since passed into 

 a proverb. In reality, hares in March are no more 

 mad than the rest of the world. They are merely 

 engaged in a very serious and absorbing occupation, 

 an occupation which renders them nervous and ex- 

 citable and pugnacious beyond even their ordinary 

 habits — to wit, the business of bringing up their 

 families and defending their abiding-places against 

 intruders. The courting season, also, naturally renders 

 these curious animals fidgety, wild, pranksome, and 

 quarrelsome. Their quarrels, which I have myself 

 more than once witnessed, are most extraordinary 

 affairs. Here is a description, given by a writer 

 in Country Life of April 29, 1902, which affords a 

 very singular insight into the habits of hares in 

 springtime : 



" From a cursory view of the fields at this season, 

 one might imagine that hares migrate also, for now 

 you scarcely see a couple where formerly they were 

 dotted over the ground like mole-hills. The reason 

 is, of course, that each pair of hares has withdrawn 

 to the vicinity of some breeding cover, and the female* 

 are engaged in family cares. It is in defence of his 



