CUNNING OF THE HARE. 
203 
Then what God has done is well done. A chapter on the tricks 
of the hare would never end if I pretended to expose them all, 
since they necessarily vary with the territory, the climate, and the 
disposition of places. The least accident in the soil, a fresh dug 
pit, a recent land-slip, a tree felled by the axe, or blown down in a 
storm, every thing affords matter for stratagems to the hare — • 
every new phenomenon suggests an idea to it. It has not studied 
the civil code ; but no legist knows better than he does, the ob- 
structions which the rights of individual property bring to the 
unlimited liberty of the right of the chase. He speculates on 
these obstructions ; he knows the inviolability of the citizen’s dom- 
icile under the constitutional regime ; he claims its benefit for him- 
self whenever the occasion presents itself ; he does not fear to in- 
voke the right of shelter in a kitchen-garden or a bed of flowers 
when the pack presses him too close. I know a hare who took 
especial delight in spreading itself out and basking in the sun at 
the foot of a young tree, isolated in the midst of a green lawn, as 
if to try the sensibility of the hunter. 
I once was caught myself by this trick. The lawn was only 
separated by a ruined moat from a little forest of roses, dahlias, 
and chrysanthemums, filling nearly the whole of a flower-garden, in 
front of a splendid mansion, then confided in the absence of its 
masters, to the care of some aged servants. The lawn seemed 
from the house the prolongation of the flower-garden, and the tree 
formed a point in the line of view. 
The animal must have been perfectljT- acquainted with these de- 
tails to affect the tranquillity of soul with which he awaited the 
attack of my dogs. 1 twice observed his tactics ; he rose from his 
lair only after they had approached so close that the nearest was 
within ten paces of him, and the whole pack had opened upon him 
furiously. Then our bedeviled little friend lightly crossed the old 
ditch, penetrated under the sacred vaults of the dahlias, de- 
scribed several circles there, gained the steps of the mansion, then 
gently insinuated itself through the narrow air-hole of the cellar, 
at the bottom of which he went to seek an asylum under piles of 
barrels. And then such a row with the dogs in the midst of the 
garden, breaking through the beds, and all the guardians of the 
