THE IRISH HARE 347 



occupying separate forms, may meet and fraternise during 

 their hours of activity. The two leverets to which I have 

 already alluded as having their home in a rabbit's burrow, 

 always grazed close to each other, and when alarmed ran to 

 the same place of refuge. 



Thompson saw the young taken from their mother with 

 their eyes open and able to run within an hour of their 

 birth ; and I can corroborate this precocious activity. Those 

 born of captured dams readily learnt to drink milk from a 

 saucer, but were able to dispense with it in about twelve days. 

 In one case, when the leverets were allowed to remain with 

 their mother, they throve very well, and she soon became very 

 energetic in defending them with teeth and claws. But her 

 affection must have undergone rapid cooling, for on about the 

 twenty-first day they lay killed and mangled, thus probably 

 indicating that period as representing the limit to which the 

 parental love of the hare can be extended. 



I have twice in spring seen a hare chasing crows from 

 a field, as if she resented their proximity to her young ; 

 but, although the squealing of a leveret should make an 

 efficient natural call, it does not summon the mother to the. 

 rescue when the aggressor is a man. 



Although hares are polygamous, two may often be seen 

 grazing in company as if paired, and sometimes several such 

 couples have been under my observation at the same time. 

 I have watched two thus resting together for some time under 

 the shade of a tree, one of them basking and rolling in the 

 sun. If not merely a temporary arrangement, it is possible that 

 the couples consisted of leverets which had remained together 

 from their babyhood. 



Irish Hares are to a certain extent gregarious, and when 

 numerous may even congregate in parties. This may be due 

 to the instincts of the sexual season, but it is sometimes very 

 noticeable in winter. Thompson found it a very marked 

 characteristic in the north of Ireland, and he repeatedly 

 saw from one to three hundred moving together in one drove 

 like deer. This herding together was not the result of semi- 

 domestication, but was exhibited in a perfectly wild state 

 when the animals were abundant. In the south of Ireland 



