70 A DESCRIPTION OF 
ing account given by Cowper, of three Hares that he 
brought up tame, in his house ; the names he gave them 
were Puss, Tiney, and Bess. Tiney was a reserved and 
surly Hare ; Bess, who was a Hare of great humour and 
drollery, died young. " Puss grew presently familiar, 
would leap into my lap, raise himself upon his hinder 
feet, and bite the hair from my temples. He would suffer 
me to take him up and carry him about in my arms, and 
has more than once fallen fast asleep upon my knee. He 
was ill three days, during which time I nursed him, kept 
him apart from his fellows that they might not molest 
him, (for, like many other wild animals, they persecute 
one of their own species that is sick,) and by constant 
care, and trying him with a variety of herbs, restored 
him to perfect health. No creature could be more grate- 
ful than my patient after his recovery, a sentiment which 
he most significantly expressed by licking my hand, first 
the back of it, then the palm, then every finger separately, 
then between all the fingers, as if anxious to leave no part 
of it unsaluted ; a ceremony which he never performed 
but once again upon a similar occasion. 
" Finding him extremely tractable, I made it my cus- 
tom to carry him always after breakfast into the garden, 
where he hid himself generally under the leaves of a 
cucumber vine, sleeping or chewing the cud, till evening; 
in the leaves also of that vine he found a favourite repast. 
I had not long habituated him to this taste of liberty, 
before he began to be impatient for the return of the 
time when he might enjoy it. He would invite me to the 
garden by drumming upon my knee, and by a look of 
such expression as it was not possible to misinterpret. If 
this rhetoric did not immediately succeed, he would take 
the skirt of my coat between his teeth, and pull at it with 
all his force. Thus Puss might be said to be perfectly 
tamed, the shyness of his nature was done away, and, on 
the whole, it was visible, by many symptoms, which I 
