ANIMALS. 297 



Hares aie divided, by the hunters, into mountain and measled 

 hares. The former are more swift, vigorous, and have the ilesh 

 better tasted ; the latter chiefly frequent the marches, when 

 bunted keep among low grounds, and their flesh is moist, white, 

 and flabby. When the male and female keep one particular 

 spot, they will not suffer any strange hare to make its form in 

 the same quarter ; so that it is usually said, that the more you 

 hunt, the more hares you shall have ; for, having killed one 

 hare, others come and take possession of its form. Many of these 

 animals are found to live in woods and thickets, but they are 

 naturally fond of the open country, and are constrained only by 

 fear to take shelter in places that afford them neither a warm sun 

 nor an agreeable pasture. They are therefore usually seen steal- 

 ing out of the hedges of the wood to taste the grass that grows 

 shorter and sweeter in the open fields than under the shade of 

 the trees ; however, they seldom miss of being pursued ; and 

 every excursion is a new adventure. They are shot at by 

 poachers ; traced by their footsteps in the snow ; caught in 

 springs ; dogs, birds, and cats, are all combined against them ; 

 ants, snakes, and adders, drive them from their forms, especially 

 in summer ; even fleas, from which most other animals are free, 

 persecute this poor creature ; and so various are its enemies, 

 that it is seldom permitted to reach even that short term to which 

 it is limited by nature. 



The soil and climate have their influence upon this animal, as 

 well as on most others. In the countries bordering on the north 

 pole, they become white in winter, and are often seen in great 

 troops of four or five hundred, running along the banks of the 

 Irtish, or the Jenisca, and are as white as the snow they tread 



which makes the dogs pursue her with much greater ardour and perseve- 

 rance than in level plains, over which the \vind skims but sliglitly. She 

 therefore avoids aL thickets, and keeps as much as possible upon beaten 

 roads ; biit\vhen she is pursued by greyhounds, she ruus from them as fast 

 as she is able, and seeks for shelter in woods and thickets. 



Knowing that harriers, even though they do not see her, can follow hei 

 track, she often practises an admirable stratagem to deceive them. Wher 

 she has run on a considerable way in a straight line, she returns a small dis. 

 tance upon the road she has come, in order to render the scent very strong 

 upon this space of the ground : she then makes several long leaps in a side! 

 direction, and thereby renders it difficult for the hounds to recover ihc sceiil. 

 By this menus the honnds are often put at fault, and the hare enabled to get 

 considerably a-head of tliein. 



