370 THE COMMON HARE. 



in a poacher's springe. On running towards the spot from 

 which the sound proceeded, he saw a hare limping off, with 

 a stoat attached to the side of the throat. The hare made its 

 way into the brushwood with its enemy still holding on. It 

 is a curious fact, that the hare when pursued by a stoat does 

 not betake itself to its natural means of escape, its fleetness 

 of foot, which would in a few seconds carry it out of all danger 

 from its little enemy, and which it always employs when 

 escaping from the chase of dogs or of the fox ; on the contrary, 

 it hops languidly along, evidently aware of the stoat's approach, 

 yet as if incapable of exerting its powers to avoid the impending 

 destruction. Whether this arises from a stupid indifference, 

 or from not appreciating its danger, or, on the other hand, 

 from intense terror, producing an effect similar to that miscalled 

 fascination, which the small bright eye of the rattlesnake excites 

 in its helpless victims, it is perhaps difficult to decide."* 



The food of the hare is entirely derived from the vegetal 

 kingdom, and it generally seeks for it during the night. It eats 

 the young and tender grass, lettuce, parsley, dandelion, stocks, 

 pinks, roots, fruits, and corn, in the seasons that such provisions 

 can be procured -, but in winter it often strips the bark off trees, 

 and there are scarcely any that it will spare except the lime and 

 alder. It is particularly fond of the bark of the birch, but more 

 so of that of the laburnum. Phillips therefore recommends 

 that laburnum seeds should be sown in plantations, and about 

 hedges and coppices infested with hares and rabbits, for these 

 destructive animals "eatable vermin," as Cobbett calls them 

 in his English Gardener will toiich no other plant so long as a 

 twig of laburnum remains, and though eaten to the ground in 

 winter, it will spring again the next season, and thus constantly 

 supply them with food. 



The hare never pairs -, but in the breeding season, which 



begins in February, the male seeks the female. She breeds 



when a year old; and, after thirty days' gestation, produces 



from two to five young, all covered with hair, and with their 



* Bell's History of British Quadrupeds (1837), p. 149. 



