HARES AND RABBITS 135 
before, when the hounds were there. I said that 
was the very reason why they were not there now. 
But it was not much fun proving to the hilt how 
hares hate hounds. 
I do not think that the typhous disease from 
which hares suffer is caused by overcrowding, since 
it occurs where hares are numerous or few. Feed- 
ing on frosted clover I am certain has a great deal 
to do with the disease. The worst outbreak I ever 
had was after a very wet, mild autumn, when there 
came a sudden frost. The clover was very rank 
and sappy. That winter I found the dead bodies 
of sixty odd hares on a thirty-five-acre field of 
clover. 
Every year, so soon as the hares’ runs on the 
clover turned black (owing to the frosted leaves 
being bruised by the hares’ feet), we began to find 
dead and ailing hares. The smaller the hare, the 
sooner it succumbed. The hares which lived in my 
woods, near which there was no clover, scarcely 
suffered at all from the disease. It is a mistake to 
suppose that hares go miles for food if they are 
well provided near home. I had a stack of barley- 
rakings to about every fifteen acres of covert, and 
it was no uncommon sight at any hour of the day 
to see half a dozen hares feeding at one stack. 
Give hares a quiet wood containing plenty of 
underwood stumps for shelter, some barley-stacks 
to feed at, and an adjoining field of old sainfoin, 
