NATURAL HISTORY. 63 
fuckles her young for twenty days, when her mater- 
nai cares ceafes After this time they feed on grafs, 
roo, leaves, corn, plants and the bark of young 
trees, to-which they are often very deftructive in 
nurieriés and plantations. ‘They breed when but a 
tew months old. 
Though the hare is reckoned the moift timorous of 
alt animals inits wild ftate, it will, if taken when 
young, become fo tame and familiar as to fleep with 
the grey hound, terrier, or pointer; of which the 
writer of this article has been eye an witnefs. ‘his 
folitary animal, although not poffeiled of the wily 
fubtilty ofthe fox, difcoversa moft wonderful in- 
ftinét, which has been given it for its prefervation. 
‘The various {tratagems and. doubles it makes, when 
‘hunted, to avoid death, would excite the furprife of 
every beholder ; nor does it difplay lefs fagacity and’ 
 eunning, in'preventing the poacher from tracing it 
through the {now, by taking the moft extraordinary 
leaps, to elude danger, before fhe takes her form, 
. 
—QioOnOo 
RABBIT anp tHe MOLE, 
"Tur great fimilarity between the rabbit and the 
hare, leaves but little to be faid by the natural _hifto- 
rian, or the moralift, in its defcription. ‘Their figure, 
food, and natural properties, are nearly the fame. The 
hare fecks its fafety by flight, while the rabbit runs 
_ to its fubterraneous burrow, which nature has taught 
her to make with an ingenuity, not to be excelled by 
the moft experienced miner. ‘The fruitfulnefs of the 
rabbit fo far exceeds that of the hare, that according 
to Pliny and Strabo, they were fo great a nuifance in 
the-Balearic Iflands, in the reignof Auguftus, they 
were under the neceffity of imploring the afliftance of 
