A statement which I made some years ago, to the effect that the Brown Hare
of the lowlands and the Mountain Hare of the hills frequently interbreed, was
received with incredulity by many naturalists. At the time when I examined
several of such hybrids, I was unaware of its interest zoologically, and thought
that the matter was a well-known fact. Consequently I did not preserve any of
the specimens I had myself seen and shot. Now, as always happens when one is
absent from the hunting-grounds of former days, it is difficult to get specimens;
Yet I have seen a good many such hybrids, and I am convinced that they are
by no means very rare, and that I shall yet obtain them when the cares of my
book are not so pressing. After severe winters in Perthshire, such as occurred in
1881, 1885, and 1894, large numbers of Mountain Hares descended to the low
moors, and to the moor-woods bordering the Tay and the Earn, and stayed on
through several summers until they either were shot or wandered back to their
proper habitat. During these visitations they mixed indiscriminately with the Brown
Hares, and undoubtedly several crosses resulted. At Murthly I shot at least
ten or twelve, and one day at a big Hare-shoot at Trinity Gask (Earnside) we
killed seventy-two Brown Hares, twenty-eight Blue Hares, and no fewer than six
of these hybrids. I remember pointing out these curious crosses to the other guns,
all experienced shooters, who were much interested in the animals.
Mr. Harting, however, and other naturalists1 have supported my view, and
at a recent meeting of the Zoological Society (April 18, 1905) Dr. Lonnberg of
the Zoological Museum, Upsala, contributed a paper on this subject in which he
stated that hybrids between Mountain and Brown Hares were comparatively
common in Southern Sweden owing to the increased introduction of Brown Hares
for sport.
Hares exhibit a marked preference for such soils as produce the different
vegetables on which they live, and they cannot be induced to flourish in districts
where they are scarce or absent.2 Hares wired in on unsuitable grounds soon
decrease and die, and if set free on such places they will travel for miles until
they find a favourable habitat. The Fens of Lincolnshire, the wild open and sandy
districts of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire, the lowlands of Essex, and the
1 See Harting, Field, May 6, 1905. Cordeaux, Field, September 23, 1876; McNicol and Colquhoun, Field,
October 7, 1876 ; Lumsden, Zoologist1877, p. xoi, and Harting, Proc. Linn. Soe. 1897. Field, June 13, 1897, Macpherson
and Tegetmeier; Field, August 29, 1891; Field, January 4, 1896. Mr. W. Evans, a very careful naturalist, says in the
Mammalia o f the Edinburgh D istrict, p. 83: ‘ Mr. P. Adair, who has shot many of them (White Hares) on the latter hill
during the last nine or ten years, informs me he has there seen a hybrid between this and the Common Hare, and in
January 1891 I examined an undoubted example from near Cardrona, in Peeblesshire.’
3 One Hare to twelve acres is considered to be sufficient.
great fields of Shropshire have ever been favoured Hare resorts. Forty years ago
Hares swarmed about Horncastle and Brigg in Lincolnshire, and 1767 head,
mostly consisting of Hares, were killed in one day. Recently 680 Hares were killed
at Lynx Wood, Newmarket, in one day, 1600 being the total of a three days’ shoot.1
In Scotland Hares are very abundant in the Border counties, and further
north the Earn and the Tay Valleys are their favourite habitat. I have been
present on three occasions when over a hundred Brown Hares have been killed in
one day there. Donibristle in Fife is another good place. Shooting there one day
in 1886 as a guest of Lord Moray, I saw sixty-three Hares killed round one large
field. About Elgin and Forres Hares are also abundant. Some people enjoy shooting
Hares, others do not, yet there is a certain skill required to kill them neatly,
and not everyone who scorns them as beqsts of the chase can invariably hit them
well forward and refrain from long shots.
It is unnecessary to say anything about the various methods of coursing, shooting,
and hunting the Hare with harriers, for many excellent books are devoted to
the subject. It seems a pity, however, that an animal which is so valuable and
which gives such a vast amount of sport and profit to Englishmen should be
without any close time or proper protection. Since the adoption of Sir William
Harcourt’s pernicious bill everything that could be done has been done to exterminate
the Hare, and now even the farmers themselves, the men for whom it was originally
framed, complain that they do not get so many Hares as in the days when the landlords
held the rights of preservation. They and their men have killed the ‘ Goose
with the Golden Eggs,’ and where all are selfish all lose. The greatest objection to
the Ground Game Act is that it is framed without any knowledge of the natural
history of the animals with which it professes to deal. In Norfolk and Lincolnshire
Hares do a great amount of damage,2 and are shot down very hard, yet they
are so prolific that they more than hold their own. The case, however, is
quite different in well populated districts such as Surrey and North Sussex, where
the Hare is now becoming a rare animal.
The Hare has many enemies. Leverets in their exposed ‘ forms’ suffer more
than any animals from the attacks of vermin; and, not to mention the legitimate
sportsman with the gun, poachers kill vast numbers with the common wire-snare.
Almost any boy can snare a Hare at his first venture, and it only requires a
knowledge of the ground and a lazy keeper for one intelligent poacher to clear
1 See The Hare (‘ Fur, Feather, and Fin ’ Series).
* In Norfolk it is estimated that three Hares do as much damage to crops as one sheep.
VOL. III.