84 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



Order RODENTIA. Fam. LEP0RID2E. 



H AEE. 



Lepus europceus, Pall. 



Hares are now comparatively scarce on many Lakeland shoot- 

 ings, a matter of regret to ardent sportsmen, but easily 

 accounted for by the Ground Game Act. Where leases favour 

 the increase of this animal, the Hare is still numerous. It is 

 from such preserves as those of Netherby and Edenhall that the 

 country-side receives a supply of stray Hares, since these animals 

 travel long distances during the night, and will at times desert 

 their favourite parks in order to lie out on the open salt marsh, 

 or to visit a field of clover. Mr. W. Hodgson, A.L.S., whose 

 retentive memory enables him to speak with accuracy of his 

 youthful experience, considers that Hares have been decreasing 

 in Cumberland for the last sixty years. Dr. Heysham wrote at 

 the end of the last century that this Hare was ' plentiful every- 

 where ' in Cumberland, a remarkable statement when we 

 remember how common the foumart and other ' vermin ' were 

 in the old Doctor's time. Lord William Howard must have been 

 keenly alive to the merits of hare-soup, if the number of this 

 species purchased for his kitchen be allowed to serve as a 

 criterion. The price never varied. Sixpence was always given 

 for a full-grown Hare. A Leveret fetched threepence. How 

 the Hares supplied by the neighbourhood were procured is open 

 to conjecture. The probability is that they were snared or 

 netted in the fashion still in vogue among our local poachers. 

 It is not unlikely that some of them were ' traced ' when snow 

 was lying on the ground, illegal as the practice had recently 

 been declared to be. But there can be no doubt as to the sport 

 openly enjoyed by county worthies of the seventeenth century. 

 Singleton wrote regarding Melmerby in 1677, that the 'bedds 

 of whinnes (or furrs as in the south you call them)/ were ' for 

 the hunters' recreation, being a receptacle for the hares. 1 Sir 

 Daniel Fleming notes [1685-6] : * Jan. 5. This day an hair was 

 started near Grasmere-mill, and was followed by three hounds, 

 which hair came by the Eydal stable door and run into the Hall 

 1 Machel ms. vol. vi., not paged. 



