THE BROWN HARE. 201 



joy of having outwitted a waiy quarry. The hare- 

 poacher, whatever he may be as we see him to-day, 

 the product of rough beds and tap-rooms, must at 

 some time of his life have possessed a very real 

 love for the great outdoors, backed by a sense of 

 romance concerning the life that dwells therein. 

 Meagre results, irregular hours, a temperament 

 which shuns the prescribed pathways of life for an 

 existence of freedom and excitement, have reduced 

 him to what he is as viewed by the world at large ; 

 but beneath the rough exterior there often dwells 

 a spirit of kindly and sympathetic understanding. 

 He might, indeed, have been a poet, had not society 

 designed for him the fate of the moucher. 



Concerning the hare's modern foes, it is interest- 

 ing to note that in bush countries, such as northern 

 Canada, man is not among the hare's natural foes. 

 I have sat by a camp-fire in the Ontario bush, and 

 seen a ' snowshoe rabbit ' hop to within reach of 

 my axe, and sit there calmly grooming itself. Yet 

 these same hares, which simply did not recognise 

 man as an enemy till they had learnt by sad 

 experience his true nature, would bolt from a dog, 

 and put up as fine a run for their lives as any 

 creature of their size in this country. It was 

 merely that the dog came within the scope of their 

 hereditary foes, while of man they possessed no 

 inherited dread. 



Will the hare come in time to eschew the open 

 gateway or the gap in the boundary wall ? Will 

 the hempen-net and the drift-net and the snare some 

 day rank among this animal's hereditary foes ? Not 

 in our time, nor in the days of our grandchildren's 

 grandchildren. Such knowledge takes as long 

 to acquire as the growth of new teeth to suit 

 changed conditions of diet, or the cultivation of 



