270 LEPORID^— LEPUS 



less ^ for safety, and, when discovered, to speed and 

 endurance. 



A hare is at ordinary times a solitary animal, spending 

 the day quiescent^ in its "form," which it leaves in the evening 

 to seek its food. Exceptionally, as when tempted by the rich 

 repasts offered at harvest time, or during the sexual season, it 

 becomes apparently gregarious ; but the gregariousness is only 

 superficial, and the members of the temporary party, if dis- 

 turbed, disperse each on its own resources. Although as a rule 

 restricting its excursions to a not very extensive area, there are 

 times when a hare may travel long distances, one having been 

 tracked for thirty miles in a night.' 



Its tastes and appetite are capricious, and its wanderings 

 lead it to some luscious field of clover, to the parsley of a 

 kitchen-garden, to lie out on a salt marsh, or to sea-beaches, 

 where, according to the late C. J. Cornish,* the chief attraction 

 is the wild sea-pea.° But always it is ready for forays outside 

 the shelter of the home pastures. Wander though it may, 

 however, it is an animal of retentive memory, using the same 

 tracks and sometimes returning to the same form for a long 

 period. Unless very much frightened or otherwise losing its 

 bearings, it restricts itself to a particular district, to which it 

 always strives to return, no matter how sorely pursued. It 

 exhibits a peculiar tendency to running along roads or 

 railways. By means of these it sometimes strays so far as to 

 lose itself, so that it fails to return. Sometimes it is surprised 

 and cut to pieces by a train, and thus acquires a reputation for 

 stupidity ; but the very same act if undertaken before a pack of 

 hounds is ascribed to special cunning. It is related that it 

 did not appear in the mountainous districts of Lismore 

 and Appin, Argyllshire, until after the construction of roads 



' They are not really inconspicuous to trained eyes, unless, of course, when 

 actually hidden by herbage. There used to be a profession made of hare-finding, 

 see Peter Beckford, Thoughts upon Hunting, 121 and 127. 



2 According to Robert Collett the crotties of the Skandinavian Hare are usually 

 dropped, one by one, in the morning after feeding and before lying down in the 

 form; and Robert Drane's tame hares were so quiescent by day as not even 

 to defecate. Drane states that anything extruded by day is passed into the mouth 

 and swallowed {Trans. Cardiff Nat. Soc, xxvii., ii., 1894-1898, 101-109, 1895). 



3 Cuthbert Johnson, Field, 21st July 1883, 96. 

 ■ Shooting, 1903, ii., 15S-156. 6 Lathy rus mariHmus. 



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