THE COMMON HARE. 369 



when it is impossible to run up, she takes the hill- side at a 

 slant. To the accomplishment of a swift runner, she adds that 

 of a good and bold swimmer. Sometimes she takes to the 

 water voluntarily, either in quest of food or a mate ; but more 

 frequently when driven to do so by a more pressing emergency. 

 This fact appears to have been noticed much earlier than 

 modern naturalists imagine. Franzius says, " It is reported 

 of a hare, that being hunted very hard, she ran into the sea." * 

 Du Fouilloux, author of a treatise on hunting, written in the 

 sixteenth century, says, he saw a hare start from Tier form at the 

 sound of the hunter's horn, repair to a distant pond, plunge into 

 it and swim to some rushes in the middle, where, by squatting 

 down, she concealed herself from the dogs. Mr. Charles Eicke 

 told me some time ago, of a hunted hare swimming boldly out 

 to sea at St. Leonard's, near Hastings. Within the last few 

 years, indeed, many similar instances have been recorded. In 

 one of these, related by Mr. Yarrell, two hares were seen by 

 Mr. William Thompson and a workman, to descend from the 

 hills on the main land towards the sea on our southern coast, 

 and after one of them had been occasionally examining, as it 

 would seem, the state of the current, during a delay of half 

 an hour, she ultimately took to the sea at the precise period 

 of high-water, and swam to an island a mile distant. Mr. W. 

 B. Clarke says, that according to the statements of the Danes, 

 the hares inhabiting a small island in the Little Belt, swim 

 thence to the other side of the Baltic Sea. 



When seized by the hounds, the hare kicks with all her 

 might j and at the top of her voice utters her plaintive and 

 piteous cry aunt, aunt, aunt. 



The stoat occasionally attacks hares, even half or two-thirds 

 grown ; pursuing them with the utmost pertinacity, and hunting 

 them down ^ by dint of its indefatigable perseverance. "The 

 Rev. F. W. Hope informs me, that on one occasion, when 

 shooting in Shropshire, he heard at a short distance the shrill 

 loud scream of a hare, which he concluded was just caught 

 * History of Brutes (1670). p. 153. 



2 B 



