Page:The Hare.djvu/23



common brown hare has long been associated with the happiest traditions of English sport. Its presence on the countryside has served to draw all classes together, and contributed in no small degree to the maintenance of mutual sympathies. Nor is this true of British sportsmen alone. No doubt Englishmen are the sportsmen of the world, but our Continental neighbours entertain a friendly rivalry with the Saxon, and the number of hares which are annually killed at big drives in Austria represent enormous figures, beside which statistics of our English sport are dwarfed into sorry insignificance. The question naturally arises, To what countries is the brown hare really indigenous? It is not a native of Ireland. The fact is a little surprising at first sight, but appears less astonishing when we remember how deficient that island is in mammalian life. Elsewhere