In March, when hares are pairing, four or five may frequently be found together in one field. Although wild, they seem to lose much of their natural timidity, and during this month I usually reaped a rich harvest. I was always careful to set my wires and snares on the side opposite to that from which the game would come, for this reason—that hares approach any place through which they are about to pass in a zig-zag manner. They come on, playing and frisking, stopping now and then to nibble the herbage. Then they canter, making wide leaps at right angles to their path, and sit listening upon their haunches. A freshly impressed footmark, the scent of dog or man, almost invariably turns them back. Of course these traces are certain to be left if the snare be set on the near side of the gate or fence, and then a hare will refuse to take it, even when hard pressed. Now here is a wrinkle to any keeper who cares to accept it. Where poaching is prevalent and hares abundant, every hare on the estate should be netted, for it is a fact well known to every poacher versed in his craft, that an escaped hare that has once been netted can never be retaken. The process, however, will effectually frighten a small percentage of hares off the land altogether.
The human scent left at gaps and gateways by ploughmen, shepherds, and mouchers, the wary poacher will obliterate by driving sheep over the spot before he begins operations. On the sides of fells and uplands hares are difficult to kill. This can only be accomplished by swift dogs, which are taken above the game. Puss is made to run down-hill, when, from her peculiar formation, she goes at a disadvantage.
Audacity almost invariably stands the poacher in good stead. Here is an actual incident. I knew of a certain field of young wheat in which was several hares—a fact observed during the
day. This was hard by the keeper's cottage, and surrounded by a high fence of loose stones. It will be seen that the situation was somewhat critical, but that night my nets were set at the gates through which the hares always made. To drive them the dog was to range the field, entering it at a point furthest away from the gate. I bent my back in the road a yard from the wall to aid the dog. It retired, took a mighty spring, and barely touching my shoulders, bounded over the fence. The risk was justified by the haul, for that night I bagged nine good hares.
Owing to the scarcity of game, hare-poaching is now hardly worth following, and I believe that what is known as the Ground Game Act is mainly responsible for this. A country Justice, who has often been my friend when I was sadly in need of one, asked me why I thought the Hares and Rabbits Act had made both kinds of fur scarcer. I told him that the hare would become abundant again if it were not beset by so many enemies. Since 1880 it has had no protection, and the numbers have gone down amazingly. A shy and timid animal, it is worried through every month of the year. It does not burrow, and has not the protection of the rabbit. Although the colour of its fur resembles that of the dead grass and herbage among which it lies, yet it starts from its "form" at the approach of danger, and from its size makes an easy mark. It is not unfrequently "chopped" by sheep-dogs, and in certain months hundreds of leverets perish in this way. Hares are destroyed wholesale during the mowing of the grass and the reaping of the corn. For a time in summer, leverets especially seek this kind of cover, and farmers and farm-labourers kill numbers with dog and gun—and this at a time when they are quite unfit for food. In addition to these causes of scarcity there are others well known to sportsmen. When harriers hunt late in the season—as they invariably do now-a-days—many leverets are "chopped," and for every hare that goes away three are killed in the manner indicated. At least, that is my experience while mouching in the wake of the hounds. When hunting continues through March, master and huntsman assert that this havoc is necessary in order to kill off superabundant jack-hares, and so preserve the balance of stock. Doubtless there was reason in this argument before the present scarcity, but now there is none. March, too, is a general breeding month, and the hunting of doe-hares entails the grossest cruelty. Coursing is confined within no fixed limits, and is prolonged far too late in the season. What has been said of hunting applies to coursing, and these things sportsmen can remedy if they wish. There is more unwritten law in connection with British field-sports than any other pastime; but obviously it might be added to with advantage. If something is not done the hare will assuredly become extinct. To prevent this a "close time" is, in the opinion of those best versed in woodcraft, absolutely necessary. The dates between which the hare would best be protected are the first of March and the first of August. Then we would gain all round. The recent relaxation of the law has done something to encourage poaching, and poachers now find pretexts for being on or about land which before were of no avail, and to the moucher accurate observation by day is one of the essentials to success.
Naturalists ought to know best; but there has been more unnatural history written concerning hares than any other British animal. It is said to produce two young ones at a birth, but observant poachers know that from three to five leverets are not unfrequently found: then it is stated that hares breed twice, or at most thrice, a year. Anyone, however, who has daily observed their habits, knows that there are but few months in which leverets are not born. In mild winters young ones are found in January and February, whilst in March they have become common. They may be seen right on through summer and autumn, and last December I saw a brace of leverets a month old. Does shot in October are sometimes found to be giving milk, and in November old hares are not unfrequently noticed in the same patch of cover. These facts would seem to point to the conclusion that the hare propagates its species almost the whole year round—a startling piece of evidence to the older naturalists. Add to this that hares pair when a year old, that gestation lasts only thirty days, and it will be seen what a possibly prolific animal the hare may be. The young are born covered with fur, and after a month leave their mother to seek their own subsistence.