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tomed eye; the hare runs round the place several times, which completely puzzles an observer, and then makes a bound over, without leaving any footmark to detect her retreat. It is hollowed out, like a mine, by the hare's scraping and breath, and the herbage beneath nibbled bare.

When deer-stalking in Glenartney last autumn, I was quite amazed at the multitudes of alpine hares. They kept starting up on all sides, some as light-coloured as rabbits, and others so dark as to resemble little moving pieces of granite. I could only account for their numbers from the abundance of fine green food and the absence of sheep, which are as much avoided by hares as by deer, from their dirting the ground with their tarry* fleeces.

An eye-witness, on whom I can depend, gave me a curious account of the tactics of a hill hare, which completely baffled the tyrant of the rocks. Puss, as is her wont when chased by an eagle, sheltered herself under a stone. The eagle took post at a little distance, and watched long, exactly like a cat waiting for a mouse. Although her fierce foe was out of sight, the hare seemed to have a mesmeric knowledge of his vicinity, for she never would move so far from her hiding-place as to be taken by surprise. Several times she came out to feed, but the moment the eagle rose she was safe again. At last her pursuer got tired, and flew away. The white hare has always a refuge of this kind where eagles haunt.

* Should anybody be disposed to call in question the correctness of this word, I beg to say my title to it is long use and wont: "Tarry woo', tarry woo' !-tarry woo' is ill to spin."

The brown hare is not on good terms with his mountain cousins. The latter have enormously increased, by the wholesale destruction of the larger vermin, such as eagles, wildcats, martins, &c. They have completely dispossessed the common ones of those territories where they abound. Like the northern hordes, I rather think they owe possession of the land as much to their numbers as their courage, for the brown hare, although proverbially timid, is very pugnacious. I once saw a battle between two of them, which appeared exactly like monkeys sparring. On slipping cautiously forward, to see what this Lilliputian fight could mean, I was much amused to find it was a couple of Jack hares, reared upon their hind-legs, pummelling each others heads and shoulders with right good-will. The blows were sharp and true; and if all the old brown champions boxed the ears of their alpine kin to the same tune, it must have been no easy matter for the hill-men to make them sound a retreat.

Should an alpine hare be started at the base of a cairn, if unpursued, she will most likely run up to a large piece of rock, and place her back against it, watching the motions of the enemy underneath. She will remain long in this position, quite still. If the sportsman leaves his attendant at the foot of the cairn, and, by taking a circuit, comes down above, there is no danger of the hare seeing him. The only difficulty is to find out the rock, among so many pretty much alike, especially as its shape from above is often very different from what it appeared below. To prevent mistakes, I generally directed my game-carrier to

hold out his blue-bonnet in his right or left hand, to point out on which side of me the rock lay; but if it was directly below me, to place his bonnet on the ground. In a calm day, I have sometimes taken off my shoes, to prevent the hare from hearing my steps, and very seldom failed to shoot her. This miniature stalking is within the reach of many grouse-shooters; and, by trying their skill at it when the birds grow wild, they may find out whether they have any turn either for wild-fowl or deer-stalking.

When one of these hares is pursued by a colley or terrier, she will run round and round the hill, on her own track, trying to confound the scent, and, as a last resource, scuttle along a watercourse, if there is one near.

The alpine hare is a good deal less than the commonshorter, and stouter made for its size; and its legs stronger, for climbing in rocky places. Its colour in summer is a blue fawn; and in winter the tips of the ears, which are much shorter than those of the common species, are jet-black.

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WOODCOCKS AND SNIPES

THE habits of woodcocks and snipes cannot fail to interest every one who has opportunity for observing them. There is a method in their movements which arrests the attention of a naturalist; but, unless he is a sportsman too, they are less apt, than many other birds, to come under his notice.

The first few woodcocks generally arrive about the beginning of October. Their approach is always made known by the red-wing, which bird one cannot help connecting with the woodcock, as guests who commonly arrive together, however unlike in other respects. When woodcocks first come, they keep to the open ground, taking refuge in brushwood, rushes, or heather. At this time they are constantly found and pointed on the moors; comparatively few frequent the coverts, at least in the daytime: towards dusk, I have seen them come down to the springs. The first frost, however, drives them to the woods, where the ground is of course less hard. Should the weather continue severe, many take refuge under thick hollies or junipers, especially where these bushes are sur

rounded by plashy ground. It is worth notice that if a woodcock is found at one of the covert springs, about dusk in October, he is sure to be at the same place in the daytime when the frost sets in. Each bird has its own favourite evergreen retreat, which it does not abandon till the weather becomes open. A good beater well knows that this bush should be struck smartly on the opposite side from the gun, or the woodcock is warned, and flies away hidden by the boughs.

During a long-continued period of frost and snow, most of the woodcocks leave the inlands for the oak and larch belts on the coast, in order to feed upon the sea-worms within tide water-mark. This sea-ground, of course, is seldom much affected by frost, and is the last resource of the woodcock during a storm. In the severe winter of 1838-9, hardly a stray cock was to be found in the inland coverts after the first few weeks of hard frost. Numbers were seen, dead and dying of starvation, among the plantations which skirted the sea, even the sea-worm having failed about the end of that long-continued storm.

The passages of the woodcocks, either at evening flight, or from one part of a coppice to another, when flushed, seldom vary twenty yards. In beating large coverts, shots who are aware of this have a great advantage. After once seeing the bird fly, they can form a shrewd guess where to place themselves next time. By facing the beaters, and securing any opening that the cock may have skirted, they will rarely be disappointed, as every woodcock will be found next day at its former post, and take precisely its

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