200 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
on the greyhound, the only one of its four-footed enemies which 
surpasses it in fleetness. For the same reason, the descent is un- 
favorable to it. Man has not yet succeeded in contriving any ve- 
hicle in imitation of the body of the hare, or calculated to trans- 
form an ascent into a horizontal plane by the proportional height 
added at pleasure to its hind wheels. The hare is deficient in its 
sight ; it is gifted in recompense with an extreme fineness of hear- 
ing, announced by the long, quick moving ears, which seem to 
replace the absent tail as a help in its course. 
It is an animal of hot blood and ardent temperament. Mater- 
nal love, alas ! is the only enjoyment not forbidden to the poor, 
since it costs nothing. The female of the hare brings forth in 
France about fifteen young every year, a litter every month, from 
February to All-Saints’ The male does not eat them, so far 
as I know, but this opinion is much controverted. The slanderers 
of the hare, those who accuse it of devouring its young, confess 
nevertheless that grave motives are needed, such as the absolute 
privation of the society of the females, to urge it to such extrem- 
ities. Although the species is spread profusely over the whole 
surface of the old and the new continent, although it accommodates 
itself to all zones ; its true country is the steppe, the boundless dry 
plains, where the wild thyme, the lavender, and odorous labiated 
plants grow. The hare does not drink ; it loves the open air, 
the free space, where the enemy is heard afar ofif, and there is op- 
portunity to flee. It perishes of marasmus in our too shady parks, 
in proportion as the rabbit abounds there. 
None have ever been preserved at Yincennes. The hare would 
only take refuge in the forests during the hard freezes of winter, 
if the persecutions of man did not render the shelter of the brush- 
wood absolutely necessary to it; for the brush is no quiet, pleas- 
ant abode for the fearful animal which hears enemies everywhere ; 
for v/hich the least noise of the wind through the leaves is a sub- 
ject of alarm, and which has reason to fear an assassin posted in 
ambuscade behind each bush. When the leaves fall, in the first 
freezes of October, all the hares abandon the brushwood for the 
plain. The hunters know 4;his well, and it is a fine season for a 
clear chase with dogs. 
