Page:The Hare.djvu/41

Rh than two leverets are produced at a birth, one of them is always marked with a spot or stripe of white in the forehead, I examined those I found, and one of them was distinctly so marked.'

Shy and timid as the hare must undoubtedly be admitted to be in the generality of cases, yet when her young are in danger she will willingly show a determined defence, and fight pluckily in their behalf. A notable instance of this was reported by Mr. John Wilkes:—

'On September 13,' writes this observer, 'as I sat in my rough-built straw hut waiting to shoot wood-pigeons in the fast fading twilight, all at once I was startled by the cry of a leveret among the nettles and long grass not many yards distant. Springing to my feet, I ran with my spaniel to the spot, where I had but just time to see a weasel run from the leveret, and disappear among the long grass and nettles, where my spaniel failed to catch it; but I had hardly time to pick up the little thing, which had blood flowing from behind its ears, before a full-grown hare came rushing through the copse, and dashed up to within two yards of me and my excited spaniel (which was beating round me after the weasel), and ran round us snorting in defiance, and every time the