284 LEPORID^— LEPUS 



There is no recent record of the use of such a snare, except 

 the statement by Mr Robert Warren ^ that it was employed in 

 County Cork, Ireland, within his memory, for the capture of 

 rabbits, and was set, not in the open like an ordinary snare, but 

 at the mouth of a burrow. 



Hares do not pair, but breed promiscuously, the females 

 when they are about four months old, the exact date 

 depending on the date of their birth, but in any case before they 

 are fully grown ; definite and reliable observations are, how- 

 ever, a desideratum. The does are discovered and chased by 

 the males by scent, often "to the point of utter exhaustion or 

 death, "^ and probably* like the cuckoo, dispense their favours 

 with impartial polyandrism. Thus are explained the proverbial 

 combats of the enamoured males, and the strings of "mad" 

 hares which follow their leader in the breeding season, Mr 

 A. H. Cocks having seen seven bucks pursuing a single 

 female. 



When in full rut, nothing could be more insane than the 

 infatuated buck. His antics are often extraordinary, and 

 include grunting, biting with ears thrown back like those of a 

 vicious horse, kicking (as he jumps over his adversary, like 

 a barn-door cock), bucking (strange, writhing, upright leaps 

 into the air), and boxing with his rivals. It is true that such 

 combats are rarely of a serious nature, and that they usually 

 cease after March, although the sexual season does not ; but 

 for a time the fur flies freely, and Charles Waterton described 

 a long contest which ended fatally for one combatant.* Mr 

 Drane was also witness of a savage and fatal affray, during 

 which one hare jumped over the other and disabled it with a 

 blow from its hind feet. It then turned round, sat up and 

 played on the dead body with its fore feet, the strokes of 

 which resounded like those of a muffled drum.* A buck has 

 been known to become so blind to the outer world as to pursue 



' W^ho sent a specimen to the editor of the Field, nth May 1907, 775. 



2 Owen Jones and Marcus Woodward, A Gamekeeper's Notebook, 1910, 57. 



3 Zoologist, 1843, 211 ; another fatal conflict between two bucks is described by 

 A. H. Beavan, in Animals I have Known, 1905, 59. 



* All Leporida are facile with the feet, which they use a great deal to express 

 emotions, anger or excitement being denoted by stamping ; this habit will be found 

 described in more detail in the article on the " Rabbit," see above, pp. 21% and 227, 

 also 168. 



