THE most numerous species of animals are by no means the most useful. Nothing can be more noxious than those multitudes of rats, mice, locusts, caterpillars, and other insects, the fecundity of which Nature seems rather to permit than to ordain. But the species of the [137] hare and of the rabbit afford to man the double advantage arising from number and utility. The hare is universally diffused over all the climates of the earth. The rabbits, though originally natives of particular climates, multiply so prodigiously wherever they are transported, that, instead of being rooted out, much art is necessary to diminish their number, which is sometimes incommodious.
When we reflect on the amazing fecundity of each species, the rapid and prodigious multiplication of particular animals which come forth in myriads to ravage the earth, we are astonished that they oppress not Nature by their numbers, and, after desolating her productions, fall victims to the universal waste they have created.
We view with terror the approach of those thick clouds, those winged armies of famished insects, which seem to threaten the whole globe with destruction, and, lighting on the fruitful plains of Egypt, or of India, annihilate, in an instant, the labours and the hopes of nations; and, sparing neither grain, nor fruits, nor herbs, nor leaves, nor roots, spoil the earth of its verdure, and convert the richest countries into deserts. We behold, descending from the mountains of the north, innumerable multitudes of rats, which, like an animated deluge, overwhelm the plains, spread over the southern provinces, and, after destroying, in their passage, every thing that lives or vegetates, finish their noxious course, [138] by infecting the earth and the air with the putrid emanations of their dead carcasses. In the southern regions, we behold, issuing suddenly from the deserts, myriads of ants, which, like an inexhaustible torrent, press forward in continued columns, drive men and animals from their habitations, and never retire till they have produced an universal devastation: And, when men, like the animals, were half savage, and subject to all the laws and excesses of Nature, have not similar inundations of the human species taken place? Have not Normans, Huns, Goths, whole nations, or rather colonies of fierce and brutal people, without habitation or name, suddenly issued from their caverns, and with no other power but what arises from number, overturned cities and empires, and, after laying waste the earth, repeopled it with men equally new and barbarous as themselves?
These great events, these remarkable aeras in the history of the human race, are, however, only slight vicissitudes in the ordinary course of animated Nature, which, in general, is always the same: Its movements are performed on two steady pivots, unlimited fecundity, and those innumerable causes of destruction which reduce the product of this fecundity to a determined measure, and preserve, at all periods, nearly an equal number of individuals in each species. And, as those enormous multitudes of animals, which sometimes suddenly appear, vanish without aug- [139] menting the common stock, that of the human species, in like manner, continues always the same. The variations of the latter are only slower; because, the life of man being longer than that of small animals, more is necessary to bring about the alternate changes of augmentation and diminution. But even this time, though it makes a deep impression, because it has been accompanied with horror and desolation, is only an instant in the succession of ages: For, in estimating the whole human species who ever existed, the number of men, like that of all other animals, ought, at all periods, to be nearly the same, since it depends upon the equilibrium of physical causes; and this equilibrium, to which every thing has been reduced, cannot be infringed either by the efforts of men, or by any moral circumstances, which are only particular effects of those physical causes. Whatever care man may bestow on his own species, he will never render it more numerous in one place, but at the expence of an equal diminution in another. When any portion of the earth is overstocked with men, they disperse, or destroy each other, and often establish such laws and customs as give too great a check to this excess of multiplication. In remarkably prolific climates, as in China, Egypt, and Guiney, the inhabitants banish, mutilate, sell, or drown their offspring: In France, and other Catholic countries, they are condemned to perpetual celebacy [sic]. Those who exist, usurp [140] easily the rights of those who have no existence: Regarding themselves as necessary beings, they annihilate those which are contingent, and, for their own convenience, suppress future generations. The same restrictions are laid upon man, without his perceiving it, as are imposed upon the other animals: we cherish or multiply, neglect or destroy our species, according to the advantages or inconveniences which result from them: And, as all moral effects depend upon physical causes, which, ever since the earth acquired its consistence, are fixed and permanent, the number of the human species, as well as that of all other animals, must likewise be constant and unalterable. Besides, this fixed state, this constant number, imply not absolute quantities. All physical and moral causes, and the effects that result from them, are balanced, and comprehended within certain limits, which are more or less extended, but never to such a degree as to destroy the equilibrium. As the whole universe is in perpetual motion, as all the powers of matter mutually act upon and counterbalance each other, every effect is produced by a kind of oscillations, to the middle points of which we refer the ordinary course of Nature, and the extremes are those effects which are farthest removed from that course. Hence we find, that, both in animals and vegetables, an excessive multiplication is commonly followed by sterility: Plenty and scarcity alternately succeed each other, and of- [141] ten so quickly, that a tolerable judgment may be formed of the produce of one year by that of the preceding year. Apple, plumb [sic], oak, beech, and most fruit and forest trees, produce abundantly but once every other season. When caterpillars, flies, field-mice, and other animals multiply to excess in one year, their number is greatly diminished the following year. If insects, during these fertile seasons, multiplied the next in proportion to their numbers, the whole fruits of the earth, all our domestic animals, and even man himself, would fall victims to their rapacity. But the causes of destruction and sterility immediately succeed those which give rise to a redundant multiplication. Neither is this destruction occasioned by contagion: It is a necessary consequence of too great a mass of animated matter collected in one place. In every species, there are particular causes of death, as shall afterwards be shown, which are sufficient to compensate the excess of preceding generations.
I must again remark, that this reasoning is not to be understood in an absolute or even in a strict sense, especially with regard to those species which are not left entirely to the guidance of Nature. Man, and the other animals he has taken under his protection are care, are more abundant than they would be without that attention he bestows on them. But, as his care has also its limits, the augmentation which results from it, has long been confined by immutable boundaries. And [142] though, in civilized countries, the human species, as well as domestic animals, are more numerous than in other climates, they never multiply to excess; because, whenever they become incommodious, their number is diminished by the same power that produced them.
In districts appropriated to the pleasures of the chace [sic], four or five hundred hares are sometimes killed in the course of a single day’s sport. The multiplication of these animals is very rapid. From the first year of their existence, they are always in a condition of propagating. The females go with young only thirty or thirty-one days. They bring forth three or four at a litter, and, immediately afterwards, they receive the male. They likewise admit him during the time of gestation; and, from a peculiar conformation of their organs, they have frequent superfoetations [sic]: For the uterus is only a continuation of the vagina, and has neither neck nor orifice, as in other animals; but, in each horn, there is an orifice opening into the vagina, which dilates during the time of bringing forth. Thus the horns are two distinct uteri, which can act independent of each other; so that the females of this species are capable of conceiving and bringing forth, at different times, by each uterus; and, consequently, superfoetations must be as frequent among these animals as they are rare in those which have not a double organ. [143]
It is, therefore, apparent, that the female hares may be in season and impregnated at all times. Another singularity in their structure proves them to be equally lascivious as they are fertile. The glans of the clitoris is prominent, and nearly as large as that of the male penis; and, as the vulva is hardly visible, and the male, when young, has neither scrotum nor testicles on the outside of the body, it is often difficult to distinguish the females from the males. This peculiarity of structure has given rise to the following notions: That hermophradite [sic] hares are very common; that the males sometimes bring forth young; and that some are alternately males and females, and perform the functions of either sex, because the females, being more ardent than the males, often mount upon them, and because the external resemblance is so great, that, unless narrowly examined, the one may easily be mistaken for the other.
The young, when brought forth, have their eyes open. The mother suckles them about twenty days; after which they separate, and procure their own food. They never remove far from each other, nor from the place where they are littered. They live, however, in solitude, each making a form or seat at the distance of sixty or eighty paces. Thus, when we meet with one young hare, we are almost certain of finding two or three others in the neighbourhood. They feed more in the night than in the day; [144] [PLATE LXX here] [PLATE LXXI here] [PLATE LXXII here] they eat herbs, roots, leaves, fruit, grain, preferring those plants which have milky juices. During winter, they gnaw the bark indiscriminately from all trees, excepting that of the alder and lime, which they never touch. When reared in houses, they are fed with lettuce and pot-herbs: But the flesh of those fed hares is always bad tasted.
During the day, they sleep or repose in their form, and are active only in the night, when they move about, feed, and copulate. When the moon shines, they are seen playing together, leaping and chacing [sic] each other. The smallest motion, or the noise of a falling leaf, is sufficient to terrify and make them fly different ways.
Some authors maintain, that hares chew the cud. But I cannot assent to this opinion; because they have one stomach only, and its conformation, as well as that of the other intestines, are totally different from those of ruminating animals. The caecum of the latter is small, but that of the hare is very large; and, when to the capacity of the stomach this large caecum is added, it is easy to perceive that this animal, by taking a great quantity of aliment, may live upon herbs alone, like the horse and ass, which have also a large caecum, and but one stomach, and, consequently, are incapable of ruminating.
Hares sleep much, but always with open eyes. They have neither eye-lids nor cilia, and their [145] eyes seem to be bad. But, as a remuneration, they have an acute sense of hearing, and enormous ears in proportion to the size of their bodies. These long ears they move with great facility, and employ them as a rudder to direct their course, which is so rapid, that they outstrip all other animals. As their fore legs are much shorter than the hind legs, they run easier up than down hill; hence, when pursued, they always take to the highest grounds. Their motion is not accompanied with noise; because their feet are covered, both above and below, with hair. They are perhaps the only animals which have hair in the inside of the mouth.
The duration of their life, like that of other animals, is proportioned to the time of their growth, which is completed in one year, and they live about seven. The males are said to live longer than the females. they pass their days in solitude and silence; and their voice is never heard but when seized or wounded: It is a loud, sharp cry, having some resemblance to the human voice. They are not so savage as their manners and habits would indicate: They are gentle, and susceptible of a kind of education. Though easily tamed, and even rendered caressing, they never acquire that attachment which is necessary to make them domestic; for, when taken young, and brought up in the house, they [146] take the first opportunity of regaining their liberty, and of flying to the fields. As they have a fine ear, sit spontaneously on their hind legs, and use the fore legs as a kind of hands, they have been trained to beat a drum, to perform gestures in cadence, &c.
In general, the hare wants neither instinct sufficient for his own preservation, nor sagacity for escaping his enemies. He forms a seat or nest: In winter, he chooses situations exposed to the south, and, in summer, to the north. With a view to deceive, he conceals himself between clods or hillocks of the same colour with that of his own hair. “I have seen,” says Fouilloux, “a hare so sagacious, that, after hearing the hunter’s horn, he started from his form, and, though at the distance of a quarter of a league, went to swim in a pool, and lay down on the rushes in the middle of it, without being chaced by the dogs. I have seen a hare, after running two hours before the dogs, push another from his seat, and take possession of it. I have seen others swim over two or three ponds, the narrowest of which was eighty paces broad. I have seen others, after a two hours chace, run into a sheep-fold and lie down among them. I have seen others, when hard pushed, fun in among a flock of sheep, and would not leave them. I have seen others, after hearing the noise of the hounds, conceal themselves in the earth. I have seen others [147] run up one side of a hedge and return by the other, when there was nothing else between them and the dogs. I have seen others, after running half an hour, mount an old wall, six feet high, and clap down in a hole covered with ivy. Lastly, I have seen others swim over a river of about eighty paces broad, more than two times, in a length of two hundred paces.”
But these facts unquestionably exhibit the greatest efforts of their instinct; for their ordinary resources are not so fine nor so complicated: When pursued, they first run with rapidity, and then double, or return upon their former steps. They always run in the direction that the wind blows. The females run not so far from their place of starting as the males; but they double oftener. In general, hares hunted in the place that gave them birth, never remove to a great distance from it, but return to their form; and, if chaced two days successively, they perform, in the second day, the same doublings they had observed the day before. When a hare runs straight out, and to a great distance from the place he started, it is a proof that he is a stranger. It often happens, that male hares, especially during the most remarkable period of rutting, which is in the months of January, February, and March, when they have few females near them, perform journies [sic] of several leagues in quest of mates; but, as soon as they are started by the dogs, they fly back to the place of their [148] [PLATE LXXIII here] nativity, and never more return. The females wander not in this manner. Though longer than the males, they are weaker and less agile: But they are more timid; for they n ever allow the dogs to come so near their seats as the males, and their doublings are more frequent. They are also more delicate, and more susceptible of impressions from the weather. They avoid water and dews. But there are males called measled hares, which love marshy and watery grounds. The flesh of these hares is bad tasted; and, in general, the flesh of all hares which inhabit valleys, is whitish and insipid; but those of elevated or hilly countries, where the wild thime [sic] and other savory herbs abound, are extremely good. It has even been remarked, that those which live in the low woody grounds of the same country, are not near so good as those that inhabit the ridges of hills, or the cultivated fields, and vineyards; and that the flesh of the female is always more delicate than that of the male.
The nature of the soil has a considerable influence on the hare, as well as upon all other animals. The mountain hares are larger than those of the plains, and likewise ofo a different colour. The former are browner, and have more white under the neck than the latter, which are almost red. In high mountains, and in northern regions, they become white during winter, and resume their usual colour in the summer. Only a few, and perhaps these are very old, continue [149] white; for they all turn more less white with age. The hares of Italy, Spain, and Barbary, are smaller than those of France and other northern nations. According to Aristotle, they are smaller in Egypt than in Greece.
Hares are equally diffused over all climates. They abound in Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Russia, France, Britain, Germany, Barbary, Egypt, the islands of the Archipelago, and particularly Delos,* which was called Lagaia by the antient Greeks, because of the number of hares which were found there. Lastly, hares are numerous in Lapland,+ where they are white for ten months of the year, and resume their proper colour only during the two warm months of summer. Hence it appears, that every climate is nearly equal to these animals. It has, however, been remarked, that they are less frequent in the East than in Europe, and that they are very rare in South America, though they again make their appearance in Virginia, Canada,3 in the neighbourhood of Hudson’s bay,4 and the straits of Magellan. But these North American hares are perhaps a different species from ours; for travellers inform us, that they are not only much larger, but that their flesh is white, and of [150] [PLATE LXXIV here] a different taste from that of the common kind.* They add, that the hair of the North American hares never falls off, and that their skins are excellent furs. In excessively hot countries, as Senegal, Gambia, Guiney,+ and particularly in the cantons of Fida, Apam, Agra, and some other regions situated under the Torrid Zone, both in Africa and America, as in New Holland, and the Isthmus of Panama, there are animals which have been called hares by travellers, but are rather a species of rabbit;3 for the rabbit is a native of warm climates, and is never found very far to the north; but the hares are larger and stronger in proportion to the coldness of the country they inhabit.
This animal, though so much in request for the tables of Europeans, is not relished by the Oriental nations. The flesh of the hare, it is true, as well as that of the hog, was interdicted by the law of Mahomet, and still more antiently by the Jewish law. But it was much esteemed by the Greeks and Romans: Inter quadrupeds, Gloria prima Lepus.4 It must, indeed, be allowed, that not only the flesh, but the blood this animal is excellent. The fat contributes nothing to the delicacy of the flesh; for the hare, in his natural state of perfect liberty, is [151] never fat, but, when fed in the house, he often dies merely by the load of fat he acquires.
The hunting of the hare is the amusement and not unfrequently the sole occupation of the idle: As it requires little apparatus or expence, and is even useful, it is a diversion universally agreeable. In the mornings and evenings, the hunter watches, at the edges of the wood, the going out or returning of the hares. During the day, he searches for them in their forms. When the air is clear and the sun brilliant, an expert hunter will discover, at a considerable distance, a hare that has been chaced, by the fumes which arise from its body. Conducted by this mark, I have seen men, whose eyes were accustomed to this kind of observation, part from their company, and go to the distance of half a league to kill a hare in its seat. Hares allow a very near approach, if they are not advanced upon directly, but by a winding and seemingly inattentive motion. They are more afraid of dogs than of men, and start sooner when they hear or perceive a dog. Though the hares run faster than the dogs; yet, as they never fly straight out, but double about the place where they were started, the grey hounds, who hunt more by the eye than the scent, generally overtake and kill them. In summer, they frequent the fields, the vineyards in autumn, and the woods or coppices in winter; and, in all seasons, they may be raised and chaced by hounds. They may also be [152] taken by birds of prey. A perpetual war is carried on against them by owls, buzzards, eagles, foxes, wolves, and men. So numerous are their enemies, that they escape only by chance, and are rarely allowed to enjoy the small portion of time allotted them by Nature.
It is universally known, that hares make forms, and burrow not in the ground, like rabbits. But I have been informed by an able naturalist, M. Hettlinger, superintendent of the Pyrennean mines, that, in the mountains in the neighbourhood of Baigory, the hares often make holes in the clefts of rocks, which is not considered as remarkable.*
It is likewise well known, that hares do not willingly inhabit places which are frequented by rabbits; but it also appears, that rabbits do not multiply in countries where hares are numerous:
“In Norway,” says Pontoppidon, “rabbits are found only in a few places; but hares are very frequent. Their hair, which is brown and grey during summer, becomes white in winter. Like cats, they take and eat mice, and are of a smaller size than those of Denmark.”+ [153]
That hares eat mice, is extremely improbable: But it is not the only marvellous or false fact related by the good Bishop of Bergen.
“The hares of the Isle of France,” remarks M. le Vicomte de Querhoënt, “are not larger than French rabbits. Their flesh is white, and they burrow not in the ground. They are very numerous; their hair is smoother than that of our hares; and they have a large black spot on the hind part of the head and neck.”
M. Adanson likewise asserts, that the hares of Senegal are not entirely similar to those of France; that they are somewhat less; that their colour is a mixture between that of the hare and the rabbit; and that their flesh is exquisitely delicate.* [154] [PLATE LVIII here]
* The hare has two cutting teeth in each jaw; long ear; a short tail; five toes before, and four behind. The ears are tipt with black; the eyes are large and prominent; the chin and whiskers white; the hair on the face, back, and sides, white at the bottom, black in the middle, and tipt with tawny red. The throat and breast are red, the belly white, and the tail black above and white beneath. The feet are covered with hair, even at the bottom. A large hare weights eight pounds and a half; its length, from the nose to the tail, is two fee; Pennant’s synops. of quad. p. 248.
In Greek, [a word in Greek letters I can’t reproduce on my keyboard]; in Latin, Lepus, quasi Levipes; in Italian, Lepre; in Spanish, Leibre; in Portuguese, Lebre; in German, Hase; in Swedish, Hare; in Dutch, Hase; in Polish, Sajonz; in Russ, Zaitza; in Arabian, Ernab, Harneb, Arneph; in Turkish, Tausan; in Persic, Kargos; at Brazil, Thabiti; in North America, Soutanda.
Lepus, Raii Synops. anim. quad. p. 204. Plinii, lib. 8. c. 55. Gesner, quad. p. 605.
CHAR. GEN. Lepus dentes primores II. superiores duplicati; interioribus minoribus. CHAR. SPEC. Lepus timidus, cauda abbreviate, auriculis apice nigris: Linn. Syst. Nat. p. 77.
Lepus vulgaris, cinereus, cujus venation animum exhilarat; Klein. quad. hist. nat. p. 51.
Lepus caudatus ex cireneo rufus; Brisson. Quad. p. 94 [back to page 137].
* Descript. des Isles de l’Archipel de Dapper, p. 375.
+ Les Oeuvres de Regnard, tom. 1. p. 180. Il genio vagante, tom. 2. p. 46. Voyage de la Martiniere, p. 74.
3. La relation do la Gaspersie, par le P. le Clercq, p. 488, &c.
4. Le Voyage de Robert Lade, tom. 2. p. 317 [back to page 150].
* La suite des voyages de Dampier, tom. 5. p. 167.
+ L’Hist. gen. des Voyages, par M. l’Abbé Prevôt, tom .3. p. 235.296.
3. Dampier, vol. 4. p. 111. Wafer tom. 4. p. 224.
4. Martial [back to page 151].
* Letter from M. Hettlinger to M. de Buffon, dated at Baigory, July 16. 1774.
+ Pontoppidon's Nat. hist of Norway [back to page 153].
* Voyage au Senegal, par M. Adanson, p. 25 [back to page 154].