The following anecdote was communicated, some years since, by Mr. James
Tatlow, of Wiegate, near Manchester, who had it from those who were
witnesses of the fact.
“One Sunday evening, five choristers were walking on the banks of
the river Mersey, in Cheshire, after some time, they sat down on the
grass, and began to sing an anthem. The field in which they sat, was
terminated, at one extremity, by a wood, out of which, as they were
singing, they observed a hare to pass with great swiftness towards
the place where they were sitting, and to stop at about twenty yards
distance from them. She appeared highly delighted with the music, often
turning up the side of her head to listen with more facility.
“As soon as the harmonious sound was over, the hare returned slowly
towards the wood; when she had reached nearly the end of the field,
they began the same piece again; at which the hare stopped, turned
about, and came swiftly back again, to about the same distance as
before, where she seemed to listen with rapture and delight, till they
had finished the anthem, when she returned again, by a slow pace, up
the field, and entered the wood.—The harmony of the choristers, no
doubt, drew the hare from her seat in the wood.”
_Eastcott’s Sketches of the Origin and
Effects of Music._