nature
2 hares fighting. Probably a female trying to discourage a male suitor
Mad March Hares ONE OF THE GREATEST NATURAL ENTERTAINMENTS IN LATE FEBRUARY AND EARLY MARCH IS TO WATCH THE ANTICS OF A GROUP OF HARES IN A FIELD AS THEY CHASE EACH OTHER AND RISE UP ON THEIR HIND LEGS AND, WITH THEIR FOREPAWS FLAILING, PUMMEL EACH OTHER’S PAWS AND CHESTS
I
t is probably this behaviour that has styles of movement, will quickly show given rise to the term ‘Mad as a March your error. Hare’, as they seem possessed by this odd Hares and rabbits were originally classed behaviour and totally oblivious to with the rodents, but wrongly, though they everything else around them. Of course, share characteristics, and undoubtedly you will have guessed that this is mating share a close common ancestry. The main behaviour. Until recently it was thought difference is in the configuration of the that the ‘boxing matches’ were between teeth. Hares and rabbits have a double row males competing for dominance, but more of incisor teeth in the upper jaw, and the careful observation has shown that it is upper teeth do not fully coincide with the partly, if not mostly, a case of unwilling lower teeth, meaning that females trying to they can only chew on one discourage over-eager Unlike rabbits, side at a time. They are in males. The lepine fact classed as lagomorphs hares tend to be solitary equivalent of, ‘Not (this means simply ‘haretoday, I’ve got and nocturnal shaped’ in Greek). a headache’. Hares are fairly common There are three species but are in decline. However, of hare in Europe, but in the Poitouthey are still hunted in France, sometimes Charentes, the only hare present is the even with packs of dogs. The hare has a brown hare Lepus europaeus (Fr: lièvre fair advantage, as it can maintain a run brun). It is easy to distinguish from a with bursts up to 75 Km/hour, and can rabbit as it is almost twice as large and has perform rapid jinks. ears that are longer relative to its headsize and noticeably tipped with black. In However, it has no handy nest-hole to bolt fact you are more likely to mistake a hare to, as hares live in open conditions, in for a dog or small deer at first glance, but depressions in long grass called forms. its white bobtail or scut, and its distinctive Even the young are born in such forms,
By Mik
e Geo r ge
Mike George is our regular contributor on wildlife and the countryside in France. He is a geologist and naturalist, living in the Jurassic area of the Charente
but, unlike the young of rabbits, which are born naked and blind, leverets are born furred, open-eyed and ready to go. This lifestyle means that hares are not bothered much with fleas, which are the carriers of myxomatosis, and so reports of hares succumbing to that ghastly disease are very rare. Unlike rabbits, hares tend to be solitary and nocturnal. They are best seen at dusk, except, of course, in the mating season, when they become quite gregarious and diurnal! The difficulty of catching the hare is legendary. Isabella Beeton is supposed to have written, in her great book of 1861, ‘Cookery and Household Management’, “First catch your hare.” She most certainly did not; activities like catching hares were not for the gentlewomen for whom she was writing, nor for busy cooks, and she would never have wasted time on such a remark. However, about a hundred years earlier, in 1747, Hannah Glasse in her ‘Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy’ begins her instructions on roasting a hare, “Take your hare when it is cas’d ...” This means
etcetera 39
