Hares in the Garden
As winter sets in, hares and rabbits are tempted to pay casual nocturnal visits to the garden. To fence the garden securely may be inconvenient—and unless the work is done thoroughly, not forgetting the bottoms of gates, it is almost useless. And possibly only a few plants are in danger, such as carnations or parsley, the special garden favourites of hares and rabbits. So the simplest plan may be to wire in the few plants or flower-beds that are threatened. Or a string may be fixed at about eight inches off the ground, after being saturated with one of the fluids used for tainting rabbits from their burrows. This is useful when isolated carnations are dotted about in herbaceous borders, or when there are several rows of Brussels sprouts in different parts of the garden; hares are very fond of Brussels sprouts.
A mysterious affair occurred in a garden, which a gamekeeper was called in to investigate. It appeared that the inhabitants of the house had been awakened in the night by a din as if the roof of a tin church had fallen off, a din proved to be associated with a piece of corrugated iron in the garden, used as a stand for pots and pans. The mystery to be explained was what had upset the stand and the pots. A tuft of the fur of a hare on the tin gave the clue, with a nibbled patch of parsley a few yards away. It was determined that a cat had come suddenly round a corner on a hare enjoying an unlawful feast, and that the hare in her fear had dashed headlong into the corrugated iron, thus raising pandemonium; one effect was the hare came no more to that garden.
