1 80 DELIBERATE DESTRUCTION OF ANIMAL LIFE 



become an unmitigated pest, against which, in these days 

 of increased demand for home-grown food, emergency 

 legislation has done well to set its hand (see p. 215). 



3 The history of the Hare as a pest is of more than ordinary 

 interest, because at common law the Hare is regarded as 

 ground game, and as such was at one time protected so 

 strictly that in 1707 the shooting of Hares by any person 

 whatsoever was prohibited under a penalty of 20 pounds 

 Scots. Such a law at so late a date can mean nothing else 

 than that the Hare was an animal comparatively rare. The 

 gradual development of the misdeeds of the Hare can be 

 traced from successive statutes, which point to an extraor- 

 dinary increase in numbers contemporaneous with the agri- 

 cultural activity of the nineteenth century, which began about 

 1837. The first law aimed against the Hare was passed in 

 1848 and permitted "all Persons at present having a Right 

 to kill Hares in Scotland, to do so themselves, or by Persons 

 authorized by them, without being required to take out a 

 Game Certificate." Judging from the statistics of the Dum- 

 fries Fur Market (see Fig. 41, p. 167), this permission, 

 coming at a time when agriculture was about to reach its 

 highest development in the nineteenth century (1853 to 

 1862), seems to have resulted in an intensified slaughter of 

 Hares, which finally caused a falling off in the stock. Still 

 the Hare remained a burden greater than the farmer could 

 bear, and for his benefit there was passed in 1880 "in the 

 interests of good husbandry" the Ground Game Act which 

 gave the tenant equal rights with the proprietor to kill and 

 take ground game on his holding. The immediate result of 

 this breaching of the privileges of the Game Laws is in no 

 doubt the Hare suffered so greatly in numbers that in the 

 Lowlands of Scotland it was threatened with extinction, and 

 over all, the slaughter was so excessive that in 1892 the 

 Hares' Preservation Act was passed, granting the perse- 

 cuted creature a measure of protection by instituting a close 

 season from March till July. 



