PICAS AND HARES. 



[ 95 



or a mate ; and there is a record of one actually swimming across an arm of the 

 sea about a mile in width. The author last mentioned writes that " on hearing an 

 unusual sound the first impulse of a hare is to sit upright with erected ears to 

 reconnoitre ; then it either endeavours to conceal itself by ' clapping ' close to the 

 ground, or at once takes to flight. It is a cunning animal, and the sharp turns or 

 * wrenches ' by which it strives to baffle the fleeter but less agile greyhound, con- 

 stitute one of the principal beauties of the sport of coursing." 



The female produces several litters in the course of the year, the earliest of 

 which may arrive in January and the latest in November. The number of young 



Mountain-Hare. 



MOUNTAIN-HARE (* nat. size). 



in a litter varies from two to five ; and the " leverets " are suckled for about a 

 month, after which they are left to shift for themselves. 



The mountain or Alpine hare (Lepus timidus) is a species with a 

 very wide distribution, ranging over the greater part of Northern 

 Europe and Asia, from Ireland in the west to Japan in the east, and also met with 

 in the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Caucasus. It is represented by a variety known 

 as the Polar hare in Arctic America, which extends as far south as Nova Scotia. 

 In the British Isles this species is not met with except in Scotland and Ireland ; 

 and in the former country is commonly termed the blue hare. Its present distribu- 

 tion is doubtless to be accounted for by the glacial period, when it was able to exist 



