THE BROWN HARE AND THE RABBIT 



613 



good observers hold that both Hares and 

 Rabbits have call-notes, and it is con- 

 ceivable that " Hare-pipe " may on 

 occasion have denoted a musical instru- 

 ment used for producing a Hare call 

 artificialh'. Calling out a Hare is not 

 quite the same thing as calling out a 

 Rabbit. In the case of gregarious animals 

 it is well known that the squeal of one 

 member of the communit}^ in distress will 

 often bring up others. In his delightfu] 

 book, " Wild Traits in Tame Animals," 

 Mr. Louis Robinson suggests that the 

 outcry of the doomed pig is a last despair- 

 ing summons to his kind. It may be so 

 from poor piggy's point of view, but I 

 doubt if the motives which inspire his 

 companions are purely altruistic, and 

 I think that when a young Rabbit voices 

 his misfortune, the instinctive desire of 

 other Rabbits in the vicinity would be to 

 suppress, as quickly as possible, a noisy 

 and indecorous advertisement of the 

 warren. 



More, perhaps, is known of the daily 

 round of the Rabbit than is known of the 

 daily round of the Hare, but of the whole 

 cycle of a Rabbit's life from year's end to 

 year's end we have no certain knowledge. 

 So far as his relations to the outer world 

 are concerned, his chief concern appears 

 to be that he shall have ample and dry 

 space for breeding purposes. An ideal site 

 for a warren is a sandy slope of heath-land, 

 edging a pine-wood, with a south or 

 south-west aspect. If, in addition to 

 the ordinary heath -land vegetation (im- 

 plying cover), there is cultivated land a 

 short distance below, so much the better 

 for Bunny. Although when the weather 

 is favourable he, as often as not, lies out in 

 a " form," the greater part of his e.xistence 

 is spent in the recesses of the burrows. 

 We can only conjecture as to the con- 

 ditions of this life, but it is probably safe 

 to assume that in winter a number of 

 Rabbits cuddle together for warmth, 

 and that in hard weather they can pass a 

 succession of days in a semi-torpicl con- 

 dition. The extraordinary fecundity of 

 the doe Rabbit — she litters four or five 

 times in the year, and there mav be 

 as many as eight or nine in a litter — 

 necessarily has a direct effect on the 

 economy of the warren. At the approach 

 of the breeding season, say in late 



78 



February, it would seem, from the shoots 

 of sand at the entrances of the holes, 

 that a number of Rabbits who had 

 wintered together liad broken company, 

 and that a general spring cleaning was in 

 progress. 



The first warm settled evening will 

 bring Bunny out of his burrow. First 

 comes the buck (to be recognised by his 

 heavier head), who after much preliminary 

 sniffing, a hurried toilet, and an im- 





HARE IN 



FORM." 



patient scratch at the ground in front of 

 him, bounds off to his feeding ground, ears 

 up and scut in rest. The doe follows, 

 but, her responsibility being greater, 

 she seldom ventm-es far. " I ittle and 

 often " is her motto, and for this reason, 

 I fancy, she not infrequently sallies out a 

 short distance at midday. During the 

 small hours she scratches out a burrow 

 for the reception of her young, and lines 

 it witli her own fur. These breeding- 

 holes turn up in unexpected situations, 

 often at some distance from the main 

 warren. In any Init the coldest months 

 young Rabbits are in evidence. Litter 

 succeeds litter, and the neiglibourhood of 



