LEPORID^ 169 



they are now thrown forward in advance of the shorter fore feet, 

 and the triangle then points the other way. The space 

 between the triangles increases with the pace, and the fore 

 feet tend to be brought into a single straight line, thus 

 removing or obliterating the triangles at extreme speed. 

 Except on snow a perfect series is rarely seen, and usually 

 the tracker must be content with the more or less imperfect 

 impressions made by single feet at gateways or in other places 

 where the ground is bare and soft. Such impressions are 

 sometimes limited to the pricks of the claws, the disposition 

 of which indicates whether the foot was a right or left, fore or 

 hind. The size of the impressions is the only guide as to 

 the species ; the tracks of a rabbit are much smaller than those 

 of any hare, and the print of the pads of the feet is less clear 

 in the case of the lighter animal. 



A /% B // <Z h 



Fig. 31.— Diagram of Spoor of a Hare or Rabbit. 



A, sitting. B, moving slowly forwards. C, moving faster. _^, impressions of fore, and /;^ of hind 

 feet. The arrows denote the direction in which the animal is moving. [The diagram 

 is after one which appeared in the Field of 27th February 1904, 362, signed " R. C."] 



It is evident that the part played by the fore legs in pro- 

 gression is comparatively unimportant. The main driving 

 power comes from the powerful hind legs, and the short fore legs 

 are merely accessory, their function being to give that con- 

 tinuity of action which is absent from a purely hopping or 

 jumping animal. As stated above, the marks made by the fore 

 feet tend to fall one in front of the other, but the hind 

 legs remain approximately together. The animals, therefore, 

 walk and trot with their fore, but leap only with their hind 

 legs. Their movements only partially resemble those of the 

 kangaroos, jerboas, and other hopping mammals ; but in this 

 connection it should be noted that Manniche {pp. cit. supra, 

 p. 160) describes the Greenland Hare as hurrying up a hill 

 in rapid jumps, " moving on the tiptoes of the hind hmbs, 

 while the fore limbs either dangled in the air or were kept close 

 to the breast." 



Hares, and even more so rabbits, habitually travel over 



VOL. II, M 



