THE HARE. 29 



from Peru ; and it is exported, though reckoned far inferior to the English, and 

 fit only for the coarser hats." 



In 1843 I was informed by a friend resident in Glasgow that the skins 

 of the common or lowland hare {Lepiis timidtis) were worth, in that city, 

 fivepence each, while those of the Alpine hare {Lepiis variahilis) were only 

 worth twopence each. As an article of food, also, the Alpine species was 

 considered much inferior, being not " gude for soup, but puir fusionless 

 things ! " 



The following paragraph, which I extract from The Glasgow Herald, 

 of 19th January, 1849, shows how this species may increase in numbers, 

 when undisturbed : — 



" White Hares. — A landed gentleman connected with this county, but at 

 present located in a different part of Scotland, says, — I have not yet seen noticed 

 in any of the journals the immense increase of white hares which has taken 

 place within a year or two on the Grampian mountains. A few days since, a 

 gentleman of my acquaintance told me that it was no uncommon occurrence to 

 see five or six hundred of them during a single day's sport. Near the close of 

 the grouse season, a friend who has shootings on the Earl of Airlie's property, 

 amidst the fastnesses alluded to, went out for the purpose of killing a few brace 

 of birds. I believe he foiuid muirfowl very scarce ; but during the lapse of two 

 hours he shot twenty-eight white hares, and, if inclined, might have easily 

 trebled the number. Unlike the furred game of a different colour, the white 

 mawkins, when started from their forms, make a circuit, and then return to the 

 spot previously quitted — a great advantage, of course, to sportsmen aware of this 

 peculiar habit. From fecundity in breeding' they have become vermin, and as 

 such very annoying to the shepherds, some of whom won not far from the sheep- 

 walks where old Norval of yore ' fed his flocks, a frugal swain.' Their glutton- 

 ous powers are further complained of; and, as they uniformly reive the best of 

 the pastures, competition so formidable is expected to tell on the condition of 

 the hirsels, when marketing time comes round. Feathered game shun the 

 haunts where the reivers congregate ; and parties, I know, who have shootings 

 adjoining, one and all declare they can get notliing now but white hares."- — 

 Dumfries Courier. 



The usual number of young borne by the Irish hare seems to be three ; 

 but I have learned from two gamekeepers, on whom I can place reliance, 

 that they have, although rarely, observed four. And my friend Thomas 

 Sinclaire, Esq., on one occasion, in the month of INIay, took six young 

 ones out of an Irish hare, which weighed 8 lb. before being opened. 



The following note on " remarkable change of habit in the hare " ap- 

 peared in the Ann. Nat. Hist. vol. v. p. 262 : — 



" April 22, 1842. 



" Mr Dear Lord, — I send you the story of the hares I told at Florence Court. 

 Major Bingham is the proprietor alluded to; and my father related the story, in 

 a lecture for the Zoological Society on the instinct of animals. — Most truly yours, 



" S. G. Otway. 



"To the Earl of Enniskillcn." 



" A considerable landed proprietor has a large tract of sandhills within the 

 mullet, which tract (open as it is to all the Atlantic storms) has been found 

 to have been greatly impaired by the introduction of rabbits, who, by their bur- 

 rowing and disturbing the bent-grass, gave faciliti(>s to the wind to operate, and 

 so the sandhills were, year after year, changing their position, encroaching on the 

 cultivated ground. To remedy this, he determined to destroy the rabbits, and, 

 in their place, introduced hares, which, he knew, or thought he knew, would 

 not burrow ; but here he was mistaken ; for the animal soon found that it must 

 leave the district, or change its habit ; for if. on a winter night, it attempted to 



