Mad Malkin

The slow spread of brown hare across Scotland is demonstrated from entries in the OSA: At Halkirk (Caithness) ‘about 60 years ago no hares were to be seen in this parish; now they are not plentier anywhere but here’, and in Invernessshire: ‘hares are very numerous, owing to the abundance of cover they have among the woods and broom.’

Fifty years later the minister at Kirkwall commented in the New Account ‘hares not until 12 years before’ though in Tiree and Coll, ‘hares were introduced 18 years ago and were likely to multiply fast, had they not been harassed and kept down by the great number of dogs and idle fellows with guns.’

The brown hare suffered a decline between 1900 and 1990 as a result of less stringent fox control. Further decline has rendered the species scarce in Northern Scotland where it is replaced by the Mountain Hare.

Considerable distances may be covered between the form and feeding areas. Hares use well used routes known as runs or hare paths. When Pursued hares tend to run in wide circles, often pausing to watch the pursuer.

This highly efficient vegetarian, which lives all its life on the surface with little protection against the elements, is sane, strong and very brave in defence of its attractive leverets.

Sex Mad

But it has, like so many of us, a little weakness. In the hare’s case this is an insatiable and promiscuous sexual appetite. Although they breed throughout the year, it is in the spring when their fancy turns with great single-mindedness to thoughts of love.

In March the bucks cavort in circles showing off to admiring does, and sometimes two will stand up on their long hind legs to spar like flyweights. Such behaviour creates the myth of ‘March madness’.

Wentworth-Day wrote of march hares: ‘Over the sky line they come cantering, with that ridiculous loppety-lop at which even rabbits laugh, ears cocked up, their slightly goat-like eyes blazing with the lights of love and battle. And when one jack hare meets another the result is ludicrous. For they sit up on their hind quarters, cock their ears and box with the bravado of a film boxer; jack is there for the women who watch and cheer.’

Many wild animals are associated with superstition. A hare crossing one’s path signifies ill-fortune, because many a hare is but a witch disguised. One of those long, powerful feet carried in the pocket wards off bad luck. Hares, it is said, change sex every year, and in the Hindu faith are sacred. They are of such melancholy disposition that they must eat cheering herbs to lift their spirits.

Superstitions include medical qualities if its flesh, many country people believe it changes sex every year; in Scotland a mother who steps over a hare’s form may give birth to a child with a hare lip or a cleft palate.

The hare was the sacred beast of Eastre or Eostre, the Saxon goddess of Spring, from whose name the Christian word for Easter is derived. For a long time throughout Europe the hare was the traditional bringer of Easter eggs.

Hare was a forbidden food among the Britons: the Romans, on the contrary, held it in great esteem. The meat of hares and coneys is specifically proscribed as unclean in Deuteronomy 14:7-8. Hares were extremely common when I was in general practice in Warwickshire and we were often given them. They are large animals and it took my wife and I several days to eat one, jugged, roast and finally curried, so by the time it was gone we were sick of it!

©Robin Hull

Note: this and other essays on mammals in Comment are extracts from A History of Scottish Mammals due to be published

by Birlinn in Spring 2007.