It is wonderful that with such a host of enemies to maintain himself
against, the varying hare may still be counted as one of our familiar
acquaintances. Except in the depths of the great wildernesses, he has no
longer to fear the wolf, the wolverine, the panther, and the lesser
_felidae_, but where the younger woodlands have become his congenial
home, they are also the home of a multitude of relentless enemies. The
hawk, whose keen eyes pierce the leafy roof of the woods, wheels above
him as he crouches in his form. When he goes abroad under the moon and
stars, the terrible shadow of the horned owl falls upon his path, and
the fox lurks beside it to waylay him, and the clumsy raccoon, waddling
home from a cornfield revel, may blunder upon the timid wayfarer.
But of all his enemies none is more inveterate than man, though he is
not, as are the others, impelled by necessity, but only by that
savagery, the survival of barbarism, which we dignify by the name of the
sporting instinct.
Against them all, how slight seem the defenses of such a weak and timid
creature. Yet impartial nature, having compassed him about with foes,
has shod his feet with swiftness and silence, and clad his body with an
almost invisible garment. The vagrant zephyrs touch the fallen leaves
more noisily than his soft pads press them. The first snow that whitens
the fading gorgeousness of the forest carpet falls scarcely more
silently.
Among the tender greens of early summer and the darker verdure of
midsummer, the hare's brown form is as inconspicuous as a tuft of last
year's leaves, and set in the brilliancy of autumnal tints, or the
russet hue of their decay, it still eludes the eye. Then winter clothes
him in her own whiteness so he may sit unseen upon her lap.
When he has donned his winter suit too early and his white coat is
dangerously conspicuous on the brown leaves and among the misty gray of
naked undergrowth, he permits your near approach as confidently as if he
were of a color with his surroundings. Is he not aware that his spotless
raiment betrays him, or does he trust that he may be mistaken for a
white stone or a scroll of bark sloughed from a white birch? That would
hardly save him from the keener-sensed birds and beasts of prey, but may
fool your dull eyes.
In summer wanderings in the woods you rarely catch sight of him, though
coming upon many faintly traced paths where he and his wife and their
brown babies make their nightly way among the ferns. Nor are you often
favored with a sight of him in more frequent autumnal tramps, unless
when he is fleeing before the hounds whose voices guide you to a point
of observation. He has now no eyes nor ears for anything but the
terrible clamor that pursues him wherever he turns, however he doubles.
If a shot brings him down and does not kill him, you will hear a cry so
piteous that it will spoil your pleasant dreams of sport for many a
night.
After a snowfall a single hare will in one night make such a multitude
of tracks as will persuade you that a dozen have been abroad. Perhaps
the trail is so intricately tangled with a purpose of misleading
pursuit, perhaps it is but the record of saunterings as idle as your
own.
As thus you wander through the pearl-enameled arches, your roving
glances are arrested by a rounded form which, as white and motionless as
everything around it, yet seems in some way not so lifeless. You note
that the broad footprints end there, and then become aware of two wide,
bright eyes, unblinkingly regarding you from the fluffy tuft of
whiteness. How perfectly assured he is of his invisibility, and if he
had but closed his bright eyes you might not guess that he was anything
but a snow-covered clump of moss. How still and breathless he sits till
you almost touch him, and then the white clod suddenly flashes into life
and impetuous motion, bounding away in a halo of feathery flakes as if
he himself were dissolving into white vapor.
Happy he, if he might so elude all foes; but alas for him, if the
swift-winged owl had been as close above him or the agile fox within
leap. Then instead of this glimpse of beautiful wild life to treasure in
your memory, you would only have read the story of a brief tragedy,
briefly written, with a smirch of blood and a tuft of rumpled fur.