esh, and it has
been thought necessary to place them under the protection of the
game-laws. They are also the prey of foxes, wild-cats, weasels, and many
other animals. Although defenseless, they still are in a measure
protected by their keen ear, which catches the sound of the least rustle
or movement, and warns the little beast against approaching danger.

The hare is the worst mother in the world. When her little ones are four
or five days old, she leaves them unprotected in their nest, and
scampers away to enjoy herself, returning once or twice, perhaps, to
nurse her forlorn babies, and then leaving them to shift for themselves.
Many little ones, thus neglected, die of cold and hunger, or are swooped
up by hawks and owls. It is a strange fact that the mother hare makes
no attempt to protect her babies, but will run away at the least signal
of danger, and leave them to their fate. Hares have even been known
themselves to bite their children to death. A young hare family remain
together until they are half grown, when they separate, continuing to
live near their native spot, for hares are not travellers, and, unless
disturbed, seldom change their home. They are very short-lived, and
seldom attain the age of ten years.

Hares are very plentiful in Switzerland, and are found high up among the
ice and snow of the most lofty mountains. These Alpine hares are subject
to a very strange change of costume. In December, when the Alpine world
is one vast expanse of snow, the fur of the hare is the purest white,
only the ears preserving the distinguishing black tip. As spring comes
on, gray-brown hairs appear in the white fur, until, about the end of
May, the animal is entirely covered with a gray-brown coat, which with
the first snows of the autumn begins, in its turn, to change again into
white. Ice hares, which are found as far north as the Parry Islands, are
also subject to the same change, with the exception that the warm
weather continues only long enough to spread a gray mantle along the
back of the little creature, which quickly disappears as the temperature
declines. The ice hare lives on the bark and twigs of the arctic willow
and the dry moss and stubble of the desolate regions it inhabits. It
makes its nest among the rocks, and in winter digs a hole in the snow.

Hares are good swimmers, but will not enter the water unless to avoid a
foe. There is, however, one species of aquatic hare, found only in the
Southern Un