279 The Hare. 



down, and become reasonably tame, or rather accustomed 

 to their restricted area. Such food as hay, made from 

 fields freely proportioned with fescue and meadow-grass, 

 freshly-cut clover (cow-grass), and other food items, such 

 as were mentioned, together with white turnips, mangolds, 

 carrots, and swedes, should be provided for them, not 

 actually as their main provender, but auxiliary to what 

 they can obtain in the enclosures. 



As the litters of young hares come along, and the period 

 of their being suckled ends (the leverets learn to feed 

 much earlier in a warren), the does are removed to the 

 small meuses, and the services of the bucks again brought 

 into requisition. As soon as the leverets show themselves 

 ready for it, they are turned away under such conditions 

 as will ensure their reasonable safety and prosperous 

 growth to maturity. As a rule, five litters in a year may 

 be expected from hares thus confined ; the produce of the 

 first kindling should breed at eight or nine months, and each 

 set of one buck and three does provide about a hundred 

 hares ready for shooting in the October of the second year 

 following the inauguration of the warren. I have given 

 the maximum results reasonably to be expected from such 

 concerns, and no attempt should be made to decrease the 

 areas named, or to increase the number of hares put down. 



The preservation of hares upon a shooting or individual 

 beats of a sporting manor demands no very particular 

 means being taken other than those necessary for the 

 feathered game on the estate, beyond protection from 

 vermin and poaching ; but to both these classes of enemy 

 of the game-preserver, hares are peculiarly exposed. As 

 regards the former there is no necessity for special refer- 

 ence except as regards hares on open commons, downs, and 

 lands of such like general character, which perhaps, beyond 

 a few partridges, carry very little else but hares. Here, 



