26 
LEPORID^E. 
sion to swimming than to leaping, as, by his disinclination to the latter exertion, 
by far the greater portion killed in the higher grounds of Ireland fall victims. 
When a few stones are removed from the base of the loose mountain-walls, 
though their entire height be very inconsiderable, the hare will take advantage 
of the opening, rather than leap the wall ; a habit so universally known, that 
by snares placed in these apertures they are easily secured, and chiefly when 
going to, or returning from, their feeding ground. On this habit a difference 
was observed by a person employed as gamekeeper in the neighbourhood of 
Belfast, and who had previously served in the same capacity in Scotland. This 
man remarked, with some surprise, that in a field where hares were generally 
numerous, and which was separated from a plantation where they were pre- 
served by a mill-race, over which was a wooden pipe, that they invariably, 
when disturbed, ran for and crossed over it, rather than leap the race, which 
the Scotch hare would have done. Although it has been thought proper to men- 
tion such trivial facts, yet no stress is laid upon them, as we find many animals 
very much influenced by immediate circumstances. 
“ In the descriptions of the Lepus timidus I have read, there is not any notice 
of their herding together, when numerous ; but the intelligent gamekeeper be- 
fore alluded to states, that in Northamptonshire he has frequently seen them, 
when driven out of a plantation, congregate together, to the number of about 
thirty, in the open ground. Where the Irish hares abound, their gregarious pro- 
pensity is a marked character. In several demesnes in the North of Ireland, 
when they were carefully preserved, they, on becoming plentiful, herded to- 
gether like deer, and thus have I repeatedly seen from one to three hundred 
moving together in one body like these animals. In all these demesnes they 
eventually increased to such an extent as to prove most destructive to the plant- 
ations, &c., and were consequently destroyed in great numbers; from a demesne 
in the County of Down they, on several occasions, have been sent into Belfast 
by the cart-load. This herding together is not the result of what might be per- 
haps considered semi-domestication in the demesne or park ; as, in a perfectly free 
and wild state, when permitted to increase, they exhibit the same social and 
gregarious habit.” * 
After the preceding paper was written, I had opportunities — in the 
month of September, 1842, spent in shooting-quarters, at Aberarder, in 
Inverness-shire— of occasionally meeting with the Alpine hare on the 
mountains, and of examining several individuals which were shot; and I 
subsequently saw numbers of them in Aberdeen and Edinburgh. 
In these specimens I could not perceive any material difference in form 
from that of the Irish hare ; and the dissimilarity in colour consisted only 
in a different shade of grey. This I did not consider of any value as a 
specific character, having observed that the general hue of the Alpine 
hares varied in Scottish localities at the same season, and that the bluish- 
grey tint was sometimes assumed by the Irish hare. In the succeeding 
winter I examined, osteologically, specimens from Scotland and Ireland, 
and found no greater differences than I had seen existing between Irish 
* “ A sporting gentleman of my acquaintance for seven or eight years kept a 
number of native hares in a large yard in the town of Belfast, chiefly for the 
purpose of keeping up a sufficient supply for his hunting-ground, and in this he 
was, from the first, successful, as the females produced three times in the year. 
The males, perhaps from an undue proportion relatively to the females, fought 
so violently, that, for the sake of peace, a few of them were emasculated, and, in 
consequence, grew to an amazing size. The same gentleman kept one of these 
hares for several years, fastened, like a dog, by a chain and collar. Those which 
had their liberty in the yard (which was extensive) never became tame; but 
when taken young, and pains are bestowed upon them, they exhibit considerable 
docility, and have been taught to play tricks, such as to beat a drum, &c.” 
