344 LEPORID^— LEPUS 



while for the other, a cottontail/ which is in size about the 

 equal of our own Rabbit, the corresponding figures are 24 and 

 72 to 84 inches ; it is not stated how these measurements were 

 made. According to Mr Thompson Seton,^ the " Snow-shoe 

 Rabbit " of Manitoba ' clears 8 or 10 feet at a bound, and makes 

 four bounds in a second, thus attaining a rate of over 26 miles 

 an hour. But this is a small animal weighing only about 3 

 lbs. The much larger white-tailed Prairie Hare,* the weight of 

 which averages 7 or 8 and may reach 12 lbs., is said to clear 

 commonly 18 to 21 feet, and races along at nearly 30 miles 

 an hour.* As in the case of Dr Shufeldt's observations, it 

 is again not stated exactly how the measurements were 

 made. 



The Irish Hare if pursued frequently "goes to ground," 

 but it digs no burrow for itself I have seen one when coursed 

 disappear into a rabbit's burrow and thus save its life,* and on 

 several occasions leverets have voluntarily done the same thing, 

 or have concealed themselves in hollow tree-trunks ; '' I also knew 

 two leverets which habitually lived in a rabbit's burrow.' My 

 friend, Capt. T. S. Blackwell, once bolted a hare with a ferret 

 in the King's County ; and in the summer of 1912 my keeper 

 thus bolted eight leverets, each aged about a month, from two 

 burrows. 



In mountains the habits are thus described :^ — They "take 

 to natural fissures in the rocks, or to natural courses, called 

 by the natives water-brakes, formed by the percolation of the 

 water through the peaty formation overlying the rock or other 

 hard subsoil, often to a depth of several feet. In many 

 localities, as for instance in the Bannermore chain in Donegal, 

 where there is little covert, the hares become nearly as subter- 

 ranean in their habits as rabbits. In these holes or crevices 

 they seek safety from their enemies or shelter from bad 

 weather, coming to the entrance of their 'burrows,' if such 



' Sylvilagus, sp. ? ^ i., 636. ^ L. americanus of Erxleben. 



* Lepus campestris of Bachman. 

 ^ Captain Lewis, quoted by Thompson Seton, i., 666. 



8 There is a similar note from Co. Antrim by an anonymous writer, "R. A, A.," 

 in Field, i8th July 1891, 88. 



' Irish Naturalist, 1896, 119. *■ Joum. cit., 1901, 73. 



' "Aquarius," in Field, 8th February 1896, 185, 



