278 LEPORID^— LEPUS 



as could be ascertained, any change of quarry.^ All these may 

 be regarded as exceptional, and indicating that the hunted 

 animal had "lost" itself. Unless hard pressed it will not 

 leave the district in which it lives and which it therefore 

 knows, but will continue to run in circles, as described above. 



One feature of the hare's character, her obstinacy, is often 

 brought out when efforts are made to drive her past a slipper 

 or in any direction against her will. Timid though she is 

 rightly described, it is yet sometimes impossible to drive an 

 unwilling hare, which will again and again face a line of 

 beaters, or even run through an excited crowd of yelling spec- 

 tators, in order to break back to the region of safety. The same 

 aspect of her character causes her, as stated above on p. 170, 

 to affect certain beaten paths or "trods," which are often the 

 means of her undoing, since they afford an opportunity for the set- 

 ting of "snares." These are nooses of thin but strong twisted 

 brass wire, firmly pegged into the ground at one end, and so 

 placed that "puss" runs her head through them before she sees 

 them. Since she never attempts to withdraw, the noose closes 

 on her neck and she is held until suffocated. The trods of a 

 hare are not so straight as those of a rabbit, and she prefers 

 to find a way through or round rather than to jump an obstacle. 

 Although coursing and hunting still flourish as sports, the 

 kindred sport of hare-shooting is growing less popular with 

 keen sportsmen, and is by many regarded as cruel. The animal 

 offers too big a mark to really afford a severe test of skill, 

 unless at such a distance that she may be killed outright by a 

 shot in the head. At all other ranges the so-called sport is 

 mere butchery, and one who has inadvertently wounded a hare 

 is confronted with a sight so pitiable and distressing as to 

 haunt the memory from the beginning to the end of the day.^ 



Although capable of swimming well and taking to water 

 readily when pursued, it cannot be said that hares living in a 

 dry country habitually bathe for pleasure. But if accustomed 

 to water, as when bred near the banks of a river, they " take to 

 it like otters,"^ and may cross more or less formidable streams, 



^ G. H. Longman, The Hare, cit. supra, i88 ; J. S. Gibbons, op. cit, 217. 

 2 Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, Bart., Shooting, cit. supra, 10. 



' Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire, op. cit., i., 560. For description of the swimming 

 in Leporida, see above, p. 224. 



