THE IRISH HARE 



339 



themselves ; the pursuit was sustained so hotly across the lawn 

 and through a shrubbery that more than one person witnessed 

 it independently ; a possible explanation may be that these 

 were two males so blinded with "March madness" as to 

 mistake grimalkin for a member of their own race. 



The eyesight cannot be very good, at least not as compared 

 with that of man, dog, or fox. Although a hare, when not 

 lying in her form, will see and move away from a man while 

 still several hundred yards away, she often does not notice a 

 motionless observer, even if he is standing in the open, and 

 will approach him quite closely without suspecting his presence. 

 On such an occasion one has fed a little quite close to me, 

 lingered to clean herself, and passed on without having 

 perceived me. At other times individuals have been so near 

 that their twitching nostrils were plainly visible. 



In relative speed, activity, and endurance, the three British 

 hares, when well fed and on suitable ground, are not known 

 to differ widely, though, as might be expected, the Blue 

 Hare is inferior when half starved in winter on a diet picked 

 up on the mountains. William Thompson was informed that 

 the only noticeable distinction between the Irish and Scottish 

 Hares is that the former goes off faster from greyhounds than 

 the latter, and is thus less likely to be killed at the first dash ; 

 but there are few opportunities of comparing these two species. 



The Irish and the Brown Hares are more often seen together, 

 since each of them has been introduced into the territory of 

 the other. People who have observed them side by side seem 

 puzzled to clearly distinguish their powers ; and in England ^ 

 the Irish are considered quite as good for coursing purposes 

 as the local hares, as shown by the large number now exported.^ 

 At Trabulgan, Co. Cork, Brown Hares were for two seasons 

 coursed side by side with the native hares, which the first Lord 

 Fermoy believed that they outpaced until the greyhounds 

 reached them, probably owing to their greater size and longer 



^ As at Gosforth Park, Newcastle-on-Tyne, fide T. Snowdon ; see Irish 

 Naturalist, 1898, 76. Brown Hares introduced at Strabane, Ireland (see above, 

 p. 329), are said to be, in comparison with the Irish, "bad soft runners" (D. Ker, in 

 lit.; see also some notes in Field, 14th April 1888, 527). 



^ E.g. from Finnebrogue, Co. Down, see the late Major-General W. E. Warrand, 

 Zoologist, 1895, i°4' 



