THE HARE. 
29 
from Peru ; and it is exported, though reckoned far inferior to the English, and 
fit only for the coarser hats.” 
In 1843 I was informed by a friend resident in Glasgow that the skins 
of the common or lowland hare ( Lepits timidus ) were worth, in that city, 
fivepence each, while those of the Alpine hare (. Lepus variabilis ) were only 
worth twopence each. As an article of food, also, the Alpine species was 
considered much inferior, being not “ gude for soup, but puir fusionless 
things ! ” 
•The following paragraph, which I extract from The Glasgow Herald, 
of 19th January, 1849, shows how this species may increase in numbers, 
when undisturbed : — 
“ White Hares. — A landed gentleman connected with this county, but at 
present located in a different part of Scotland, says, — I have not yet seen noticed 
in any of the journals the immense increase of white hares which has taken 
place within a year or two on the Grampian mountains. A few days since, a 
gentleman of my acquaintance told me that it was no uncommon occurrence to 
see five or six hundred of them during a single day’s sport. Near the close of 
the grouse season, a friend who has shootings on the Earl of Airlie’s property, 
amidst the fastnesses alluded to, went out for the purpose of killing a few brace 
of birds. I believe he found muirfowl very scarce ; but during the lapse of two 
hours he shot twenty-eight white hares, and, if inclined, might have easily 
trebled the number. Unlike the furred game of a different colour, the white 
mawkins, when started from their forms, make a circuit, and then return to the 
spot previously quitted— a great advantage, of course, to sportsmen aware of this 
peculiar habit. From fecundity in breeding they have become vermin, and as 
such very annoying to the shepherds, some of whom won not far from the sheep- 
walks where old Norval of yore ‘ fed his flocks, a frugal swain.’ Their glutton- 
ous powers are further complained of; and, as they uniformly reive the best of 
the pastures, competition so formidable is expected to tell on the condition of 
the hirsels, when marketing time comes round. Feathered game shun the 
haunts where the reivers congregate ; and parties, I know, who have shootings 
adjoining, one and all declare they can get nothing now but white hares.” — 
Dumfries Courier. 
The usual number of young borne by the Irish hare seems to be three ; 
but I have learned from two gamekeepers, on whom I can place reliance, 
that they have, although rarely, observed four. And my friend Thomas 
Sinclaire, Esq., on one occasion, in the month of May, took six young 
ones out of an Irish hare, which weighed 81b. before being opened. 
The following note on “ remarkable change of habit in the hare ” ap- 
peared in the Ann. Nat. Hist. vol. v. p. 262 : — 
“ April 22, 1842. 
“My Dear Lord, — I send you the story of the hares I told at Florence Court. 
Major Bingham is the proprietor alluded to; and my father related the story, in 
a lecture for the Zoological Society on the instinct of animals. — Most truly yours, 
“ S. G. Otway. 
“ To the Earl of Enniskillen.” 
“ A considerable landed proprietor has a large tract of sandhills within the 
muljet, which tract (open as it is to all the Atlantic storms) has been found 
to have been greatly impaired by the introduction of rabbits, who, by their bur- 
rowing and disturbing the bent-grass, gave facilities to the wind to operate, and 
so the sandhills were, year after year, changing their position, encroaching on the 
cultivated ground. To remedy this, he determined to destroy the rabbits, and, 
in their place, introduced hares, which, he knew, or thought he knew, would 
not burrow ; but here he was mistaken ; for the animal soon found that it must 
leave the district, or change its habit ; for if, on a winter night, it attempted to 
