THE HARE AND ITS WAYS 49 



hearth and home that the hare exhibits his most 

 surprising ebulUtions of ' March madness,' and the 

 other day I witnessed a performance which would 

 have brought down the house in a circus. We had 

 put up one hare in a sloping meadow, and it went 

 off up-hill like a steam-engine and skirted along the 

 hedge at the top. Here, however, another hare, 

 which had not seen us, and had reasons of his own 

 for objecting to the stranger's presence, dashed out 

 upon the fugitive and bowled him over. The latter 

 quickly picked himself up and knocked over his 

 assailant in turn, and then leisurely continued his 

 flight. The other hare, however, was furious, and 

 dashed after him, causing the fugitive to turn and 

 await the onset. 



" Several times they met with a bang, and at last 

 grappled, each standing bolt upright on his hind toes 

 and trying to pull the other down. They were so 

 evenly matched, however, that they slowly revolved 

 like a pair of old-fashioned waltzers, their long, thin 

 hind legs giving them the quaintest human aspect. 

 For fully three minutes they thus danced together 

 on the green, but I shall never know which was really 

 the better hare. I was accompanied by two human 

 boys, who stood it as long as they could, cramming 

 pocket-handkerchiefs into their mouths and writhing 

 in agony of suppressed mirth. But the longer the 

 combat lasted the funnier it seemed to grow, and 

 at last, with a splurt, the boys broke into roars of 

 laughter, and the hares bolted in panic and in opposite 

 directions. It is not often that wild creatures thus 

 fight in earnest, and when they do it is almost always, 

 as in this case, under a misapprehension. The object 

 of the assailant was to drive the intruder back, and 

 he did not know that this was rendered impossible 



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