A Plea for the Hare.
I never see a hare when out for a country walk or ride—it is different,
I fear, when I have a gun in my hand or am following beagles—without
thinking to myself, “Poor devil!” For here is an animal, one of the few
mammals remaining to us in England, which is the essential to one branch
of sport, and which plays a leading part in two others, absolutely
unprotected by law even at the breeding season of the year, when all but
the vilest vermin should enjoy immunity from persecution. “Unprotected
by law,” however, is too mild a term, for the iniquitous Ground Game Act
even goes so far as to actually sanction the destruction of hares the
whole year round. I do not propose herein to deal with the manifold
objections to this Act beyond what I may call this “all-the-year round”
principle and the fact that it is framed without any knowledge of the
natural history of the animal it professes to deal with. For though in
some parts of Norfolk and elsewhere the enormous number of hares may
possibly offer some defence for its perpetration, other localities in
England are naturally so denuded of hares that the creatures demand
almost as much protection as would a pair of golden eagles in Hyde Park.
There is, in fact, just about as much common-sense in allowing this Act
to have indiscriminate power all over our country as there would be in
allowing the indiscriminate persecution of partridges all over Europe
just because they happen to be especially numerous in Hungary!
To quote a case in point. I spent the first twenty years of my life in a
part of Surrey which, if not very prolific in game, certainly produced a
fair quantity. I never saw a hare in that district except on occasions
when I was following the harriers, whereas in Norfolk I have over and
over again counted ten or a dozen in one field; and yet the same law of
extermination reigns supreme in either county. But if we feel aggrieved
with those legislators who gave us the Ground Game Act, and whom no one
in their wildest flights of imagination would accuse of being sportsmen,
how much more indignant ought we to be with those who claim this title,
and in that guise continue to persecute the hare long after the
legitimate period of winter well into the months of spring? Opinions may
differ as to the usual time for the appearance of the first litter of
leverets; or perhaps I should leave out the word “litters,” as does
often produce only a single youngster at a birth. I do not think,
however, that I shall be unjust if I claim that naturalists will hold to
the theory that young hares have in mild winters been found in January
and February, and very commonly in March, while only those who wish to
continue hunting or coursing through the mad month will advance the
somewhat convenient idea that it is unusual to see leverets much before
the end of April.
This very winter, on January 19th, I watched several groups of hares
busily occupied in the pursuit of love-making. Assuming that their
courtship lasted a full week, which is extremely unlikely, and that the
period of gestation is anything between four and five weeks, it is fair
to expect that several of the hares which I saw produced young ones
early in March, and for at least the last ten days of February were in a
totally unfit state to run before greyhounds, harriers, or beagles. And
although the month in which I write is March, and in less than a week
April will have arrived, I find in my copy of the _Field_ the fixtures
of no less than ten packs of harriers and beagles announced for the next
seven days, and some of these without the welcome words, “to finish the
season.” I hope the omission is accidental. From the same source I
gather an account of a coursing meeting held as late as March 22nd, and
it is quite safe to infer that many other less reputable clubs are still
gaily continuing their season, and that there are a few packs of hounds
still hunting puss who do not advertise their meets. And all through
this time, which should be held sacred to the rites of love, in addition
to coursing and hunting, the farmer continues to pump lead into the hind
quarters of this unfortunate bundle of timidity.
I have mentioned as briefly as I could what we have done for the hare,
let us now consider what she has done for us, and will continue to do,
if we will only permit her. Out shooting we all know her charm. She may
not be a very satisfactory animal to shoot at or even to kill, but the
bag is not complete when we cannot add her to the total we gather round
the covert-side or behind the hedges. Chiefly when partridge-driving we
could least spare her cheery and monotony-breaking presence, that
confiding way she has of sitting in the hedge opposite us and almost
entering into conversation with us, and then her maddening habit of
preferring the society of the beaters to our own. And, too, what a test
of skill and quickness she affords in covert to the walking guns; and
let us not forget how once—an all unconscious humourist—she beguiled an
unfortunate M.F.H. into shooting a fox in mistake for her russet self!
But it is not in the shooting-field that her chief business—her _raison
d’être_, so to speak—lies; she plays a bigger part in the world of sport
than that. There are, I believe, in England no less than one hundred and
nineteen packs of harriers and forty-eight packs of beagles, making in
all a total of a hundred and sixty-seven packs of hounds kept simply and
solely to hunt the hare. Some of these, it is true, contain a
considerable quantity of foxhound blood, but many are free from any
taint of it whatsoever, and are as separate and distinct from foxhounds
both in themselves and in their ancestors for all times as chalk is from
cheese. These hounds exist chiefly in Lancashire, and also in Wales and
Devonshire. But whether a hound is a true harrier, a diminutive
foxhound, or a cross-bred, is of little importance in illustrating my
point, so long as he is kept only for the purpose of pursuing the hare.
If we will consider the number of servants that each hunt has to employ,
the quantity of food and fodder consumed by hounds and horses, where
these latter are necessary, and multiply that result by a hundred and
sixty-seven, we shall gain a rough estimate of the hare as an employer
of labour and as a virtual principal in necessary purchases from farmers
and various dealers.
I have not been able to accurately ascertain the number of coursing
clubs existant in this country, but though they have diminished somewhat
from the “good old days,” there are quite sufficient remaining to admit
the claim that the cult of the greyhound resembles in a less degree the
cult of the racehorse. The hare and the greyhound are quite inseparable;
it is safe to say that without the former the latter would never have
existed, nor would, even at this late stage of his evolution, continue
to exist. If then, again, we will make a mental note of the quantity of
kennels throughout the country, the work entailed by the Waterloo Cup
and other less important meetings, the various employees of the Barbican
Repository and Aldridge’s—though these places, of course, have other
functions—we shall be bound to admit that in this branch of sport,
again, the hare indirectly gives scope for a vast amount of labour. And
she makes the money change hands, too, as witness the large prices now
paid for greyhounds and the railway fares of spectators to various
coursing meetings.
It is possible to gather from these rough facts something of the
economic importance of this sandy mistress of the woods and fields; it
is quite impossible to estimate how much health-giving pleasure she
gives to the devotees of sport or to what enormous numbers she gives it.
This point I can safely leave to the imagination of the reader. I have
explained that the hare is entirely responsible for the existence of
greyhound, harrier, and beagle, and to these three species I would add
the Norfolk lurcher, an animal of unenviable reputation, but sometimes
of extraordinary beauty, and an incalculable and perfectly legitimate
assistance to the warrener. It remains only for me to touch lightly on
her culinary value, to call to mind how she may be jugged, roasted,
braised, hidden away in soups and game-pies, served as an _entrée_ in a
dozen different forms, and I have finished an extraordinary catalogue of
virtues for one little animal. The sporting kings that came before us,
the Richards, the Williams, and the Georges, knew her worth, and with
divers pains and penalties forbade her indiscriminate destruction. Their
actions gave us a goodly heritage of hares; and for what? That we should
treat her with as little consideration as we show to a stoat or a rat,
although she is less defenceless in her habits than these; that we
should ruthlessly proceed to exterminate the goose that lays so many
golden eggs.
Hunted and coursed till far too late in the season, shot and snared all
the year round, without a hole or burrow wherein to hide her
inconveniently large body, how long will she survive these methods save
in the sacred precincts of the large game preserves whose owners—good
luck to them!—drive a motor-car through the Ground Game Act? The Hare
Preservation Act, the only legislation in her favour at present
existant, is not worth the parchment the precious document is written
on; for it only prohibits the sale of English hares during March, April,
May, June and July. Of foreign hares it says nothing, and many foreign
hares differ so little from the English ones that no one can tell the
difference! And poor puss does not ask for much, she would like, as
would all her friends, the abolition of the Ground Game Act; but,
failing this, she only wants one little Act to give her immunity from
death or danger from February 28th—or a little earlier if possible—to
September 1st; and does she not deserve it?