BOOK V. 



AxMMALS OF THE HARE KIND.' 



INTRODUCnoX. 



Having described in the last chapter a tribe of minute, fierce, 

 rap;icious animals, I come now to a race of minute animals of a 

 more harmless and gentle kind, that, without being enemies to 

 any, are preyed upon by all. As Nature has fitted the former 

 for hostility, so it has entirely formed the latter for evasion ; and 

 as the one kind subsist by their courage and activity, so the other 

 find safety fiom their swiftness and their fears. The hare is the 

 swiftest animal in the world for the time it continues ; and few- 

 quadrupeds can overtake even the rabbit, when it has but a short 

 way to run. To this class also we may add the squirrel, some- 

 what resembling the hare and rabbit in its form and nature, and 

 equally pretty, inoffensive, and pleasing. 



If we were methodically to distinguish animals of the hare kind 

 from all others, we might say that they have hut two cutting teeth 

 above and two below, that they are covered with a soft downy 

 fur, and that they have a busby tail. The combination of these 

 marks might perhaps distinguish them tolerably well, whether 

 irom the rat, the beaver, the otter, or any other most nearly ap- 

 proaching in form. But, as I have declined all method that 

 rather tends to embarrass history than enlighten it, I am con- 

 tented to class these animals together for no very precise reason, 

 but because I find a general resemblance between them in their 

 natural habits, and in the shape of their heads and body. I call 

 a squirrel an animal of the hare kind, because it is something 

 like a hare. I call the paca of the same kind, merely because it 

 is more like a rabbit than any other animal I know of. In short, 

 it is fit to erect some particular standard in the imagination of 



1 The animals of this iamily have two front teetli in each jaw; tlioso in 

 the upper jau- are doubled, Iiaving tivo iuialh'r ones standing- beliind the 

 others : they feed entirely ou vefretahles, are very small, and run by a kind 

 of leaping- : they have live toes on the fore-feet, and four on the liiiider. 



