A HARE'S LITTER.
The unprecedented multiplication of partridges, and indeed of wild pheasants, has been recorded in many places and with much emphasis in diaries of this summer. In Hampshire, at any rate, partridges are as numerous almost as starlings, or were before a famous sportsman shot with the day's companions an average of 470 birds a day ! It has not, I think, been noticed that the summer was almost as favourable to the breeding of hares. To give one example, more hares were shot one day last week on a Midland estate than on any occasion in the annals ; and very precise annals have been kept for some sixty years. Hares, of course, do not multiply at the scarcely credible rate achieved by rabbits ; and it is one of the most curious gaps in natural history knowledge that the average litter of a hare is still a disputed subject. Is five or three the usual number ; and do the litters tend to vary in different years ? That such doubt should still exist is a marvellous tribute to the hare's skill in finding different nurseries for her young soon after birth.
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