In early spring the European male hares can be seen doing all kinds of strange antics —leaping in the air, tumbling about on the ground, and fighting among themselves. From the description “as mad as a March hare” it is obvious that this behaviour is customary at the beginning of the hare’s mating season. Hares belong to the same family as rabbits. Hares, however, are usually larger than rabbits. Their young are born with fur and with their eyes open. Rabbits are born naked and with their eyes closed.
Hares and rabbits are very important in the balance of nature. They are food for thousands of predators, foxes, owls, hawks, snakes, weasels, coyotes, bobcats and many others. Consequently the hares are in constant danger, and only a small percentage of them live for longer than a year. They have no means of defence, although a mother hare will try to fight to protect her young. They can run very fast and sometimes escape from enemies in this way. The jackrabbit of western United States (which is really a hare) has been clocked at a speed of forty miles an hour. It can make twenty- foot leaps, too. Jackrabbits are perhaps the fastest of all the hares.
During the day hares spend most of their time resting in “forms” on their territory. These “forms”are just favourite sitting places where the hare feels protected—in a log, or a brush pile, or sometimes in the open. In the evening and during the night the hares feed. They are vegetarians and will eat almost all kinds of plants. One of the most interesting hares of North America is the varying hare. It is also called the snowshoe rabbit because of its furred feet, with which it can walk easily on snow. During the winter this hare has thick white fur. Only its ear tips are black. However in the spring it begins shedding its white fur, and its brown summer coat starts coming in. By midsummer it is completely brown. In the fall it begins turning white again. These colour changes make it much harder for its enemies to see the varying hare in its natural habitat.
Varying hares mate in early spring and the young are born in about a month. The average size of the litter is four. The mother does not prepare a nest for them. During the day she stays near them, but she nurses them only at night. Within a few weeks they are eating grass, and are weaned when they are about a month old. They mate for the first time when they are a year old. Varying hares may weigh as much as four pounds and be as long as eighteen inches.
Another hare which changes colour with the seasons is the large Arctic hare. It may weigh up to twelve pounds in Alaska, where the largest ones are found. Arctic hares provide food for many of the animals of the Arctic, including the bears, the snowy owls and the foxes, as well as for the Eskimos.
Hares Pictures
