THE HARE. 
193 
If they could speak, we think we know 
What kind of words they’d say, sir — 
“ ’Tis very hard to use us so,” 
Say hunter, hack and racer. f 
The man that owns or keeps a horse 
Should be his horse’s friend, sir. 
Supply his wants, and— this of course — 
Not dock his hinder end, sir. 
If every docker could be docked. 
Or sent from dock to gaol, sir 
(Although your feelings may be shocked). 
No horse would give them bail, sir. 
Alas, alas ! the docker knows 
The story can’t be told, sir : 
How shall a docked horse speak his woes. 
Or any tail unfold, sir ? 
F, M. Millard. 
THE HARE.* * 
No less than six authors contribute to The Hare, and though by this means 
we have the views of specialists upon the life history of the hare, and the various 
ways of dealing with her, alive and dead, we hardly think the present instalment 
is in ail respects quite up to the level of the other volumes of the series. It might 
be anticipated that it would be difficult to fill the usual eighty or ninety pages 
allotted to this branch of the subject with an account of what is, strictly speaking, 
the natural history of the hare, and accordingly we find two out of the four 
chapters in the first division devoted to the laws about hares and poaching. And, 
while these afford interesting and instructive reading, there are a few points 
relating to the habits of the hare which we should have gladly seen mentioned. 
For instance, the particular kind of lying which a hare favours (apart from a local 
preference for certain fields, which is well marked), mentioned, indeed, later on 
by the author of “ Hunting the Hare its habit of taking particular lines when 
coursed ; of coming on to the dusty high roads in the dawn of a summer morning 
to dry the dew from its feet before repairing to its form ; of going to ground when 
coursed, and some others. But, in his opening chapters, Mr. Macpherson dis- 
cusses fully and pleasantly the general natural history of this valuable animal, and 
readers will find full information upon such points as food, weight, the number of 
leverets born at once and the season of their birih, the distribution of the hare 
and its variations, with remarks on disease, pace, and the distance a chased hare 
can cover in a leap. In this connection the difference between the track of a hare 
and that of a rabbit might have been pointed out, as well as the difference in the 
t It is said that race-horses are not docked ; but that steeple-chasers are. 
* “ Fur and Feather Series.” The Hare. Natural History, by the Rev. 
H. A. Macpherson ; Shooting, by the Hon. Gerald Lascelles; Coursing, by- 
Charles Richardson ; Hunting, by J. S. Gibbons and G. H. Longman ; Cookery, 
by Col. Kenney Herbert. Illustrated by G. D. Giles, A. Thorburn, and C. 
Whympa. Pp. x., 263. Longmans, 1896. Price 5s. 
