Act ii. Sc. 1.
Although the deer, as the nobler animal, has received more attention from our poet than the fox and the hare, yet the two last-named are by no means forgotten:—
“The fox [who] barks not when he would steal the lamb”
(Henry VI. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 1);
who, when he “hath once got in his nose,” will “soon find means to make the body follow” (Henry VI. Part III. Act iv. Sc. 7); and—
“Who ne’er so tame, so cherish’d and lock’d up,
Will have a wild trick of his ancestors”
(Cymbeline, Act v. Sc. 2);
receives his share of notice, although it is not always in his praise, and “subtle as the fox” has become a proverb (Cymbeline, Act iii. Sc. 3).
From the “subtle fox” to the “timorous hare,” the transition is easy. What “more a coward than a hare”? (Twelfth Night, Act iii. Sc. 5.)