COUNTRY LIFE
"MAD as a March hare" is more than a trite saying. Most countrymen have at one time or another watched the strange gambollings of hares in this month, often in considerable companies, if I 'remember rightly youthful experiences in a hare county. "These kickings-up-of-heels" have been taken by- official naturalists as symbols of mating, and, indeed, it is hard to suggest any other stimulus. One inference from this theory is that litters are not born till April. Now I have received lately much evidence of an old conviction that hares breed very much earlier in the year. One informant found leverets of a good size this last February ; they must have been born in January, doubtless a very unusual date, but much evidence is forthcoming. of February births. During the first European war a number. of hares on an estate in my neighbourhood were shot in February (when even the shooting- of pheasants at that date was recommended) and several of the does were found to be gravid and would probably have produced four or five young rather before March. Why, then, does the hare wait till March to go mad?
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