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Hares
European Hare (Lepus europaeus)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Lagomorpha
Family:	Leporidae
Genus:	Lepus Linnaeus, 1758
Type species
Lepus timidus Linnaeus, 1758
Species
See text

Hares and jackrabbits are leporidaes belonging to the genus Lepus. (There are four other species called hares: Caprolagus or the Hispid Hare, and Pronolagus or the red rock hares.) Hares less than one year old are called leverets.

Hares are very fast-moving. The European Brown Hare (Lepus europaeus) can run at speeds of up to 72 km/h (45 mph). They live solitarily or in pairs, while a "drove" is the collective noun for a group of hares. Their bodies are capable of absorbing the g-force produced while running at extreme speeds or while escaping predators.

A common type of hare in Arctic North America is the Snowshoe Hare, replaced further south by the Black-tailed Jackrabbit, White-tailed Jackrabbit and other species.

Normally a shy animal, the European Brown Hare changes its behaviour in spring, when hares can be seen in broad daylight chasing one another around meadows; this appears to be competition between males to attain dominance (and hence more access to breeding females). During this spring frenzy, hares can be seen "boxing"; one hare striking another with its paws (probably the origin of the term "mad as a March hare"). For a long time it had been thought that this was inter-male competition, but closer observation has revealed that it is usually a female hitting a male, either to show that she is not yet quite ready to mate, or as a test of his determination.

Differences from rabbits

Hares do not bear their young below ground in a burrow as do other leporids, rather in a shallow depression or flattened nest of grass called a form. Hares are adapted to the lack of physical protection, relative to that afforded by a burrow, by being born fully furred and with eyes open. They are hence able to fend for themselves soon after birth; they are precocial. By contrast, the related rabbits and cottontail rabbits are altricial, having young that are born blind and hairless.

All rabbits (except the cottontail rabbits) live underground in burrows or warrens, while hares (and cottontail rabbits) live in simple nests above the ground, and usually do not live in groups. Hares are generally larger than rabbits, with longer ears, and have black markings on their fur. Hares have not been domesticated, while rabbits are often kept as house pets. There is a domestic pet known as the "Belgian Hare" but this is a rabbit that has been selectively bred to resemble a hare.^[1]

The hare's diet is very similar to the rabbit's. They are also both part of the Lagomorph order.

Classification

Jackrabbit photographed at Replica of old Fort Bliss

A Cape Hare Lepus capensis

• Genus Lepus ^[2]
  • Subgenus Macrotolagus
    • Antelope Jackrabbit, Lepus alleni
  • Subgenus Poecilolagus
    • Snowshoe Hare, Lepus americanus
  • Subgenus Lepus
    • Arctic Hare, Lepus arcticus
    • Alaskan Hare, Lepus othus
    • Mountain Hare, Lepus timidus
  • Subgenus Proeulagus
    • Black-tailed Jackrabbit, Lepus californicus
    • White-sided Jackrabbit, Lepus callotis
    • Cape Hare, Lepus capensis
    • Tehuantepec Jackrabbit, Lepus flavigularis
    • Black Jackrabbit, Lepus insularis
    • Scrub Hare, Lepus saxatilis
    • Desert Hare, Lepus tibetanus
    • Tolai Hare, Lepus tolai
  • Subgenus Eulagos
    • Broom Hare, Lepus castroviejoi
    • Yunnan Hare, Lepus comus
    • Korean Hare, Lepus coreanus
    • Corsican Hare, Lepus corsicanus
    • European Hare, Lepus europaeus
    • Granada Hare, Lepus granatensis
    • Manchurian Hare, Lepus mandschuricus
    • Woolly Hare, Lepus oiostolus
    • Ethiopian Highland Hare, Lepus starcki
    • White-tailed Jackrabbit, Lepus townsendii
  • Subgenus Sabanalagus
    • Ethiopian Hare, Lepus fagani
    • African Savanna Hare, Lepus microtis
  • Subgenus Indolagus
    • Hainan Hare, Lepus hainanus
    • Indian Hare, Lepus nigricollis
    • Burmese Hare, Lepus peguensis
  • Subgenus Sinolagus
    • Chinese Hare, Lepus sinensis
  • Subgenus Tarimolagus
    • Yarkand Hare, Lepus yarkandensis
  • Subgenus incertae sedis
    • Japanese Hare, Lepus brachyurus
    • Abyssinian Hare, Lepus habessinicus

As Food

Hares and rabbits are plentiful in many areas, adapt to a wide variety of conditions, and reproduce quickly, so hunting is often less regulated than for other varieties of game. In rural areas of North America and particularly in pioneer times,^[3] they were a common source of meat. However, because of their extremely low fat content, they are a poor choice as a survival food.^[4]

Hares can be prepared in the same manner as rabbits—commonly roasted or taken apart for breading and frying.

Hasenpfeffer (also spelled hasenfeffer) is a traditional German stew made from marinated rabbit or hare. Pfeffer is not only the name of a spice, but also of a dish where the animal's blood is used as a gelling agent for the sauce. Wine or vinegar is also a prominent ingredient, to lend a sourness to the recipe.

Jugged Hare (known as civet de lièvre in France), is a whole hare, cut into pieces, marinated and cooked with red wine and juniper berries in a tall jug that stands in a pan of water. It traditionally is served with the hare's blood (or the blood is added right at the very end of the cooking process) and Port wine.^[5][6][7][8]

Jugged Hare is described in the influential 18th century cookbook, The Art of Cookery by Hannah Glasse, with a recipe titled, "A Jugged Hare," that begins, "Cut it into little pieces, lard them here and there...." The recipe goes on to describe cooking the pieces of hare in water in a jug that it set within a bath of boiling water to cook for three hours.^[9] Beginning in the nineteenth century, Glasse has been widely credited with having started the recipe with the words "First, catch your hare," as in this citation.^[6] This attribution is apocryphal.

However, having a freshly caught, or shot, hare enables one to obtain its blood. A freshly killed hare is prepared for jugging by removing its entrails and then hanging it in a larder by its hind legs, which causes the blood to accumulate in the chest cavity. One method of preserving the blood after draining it from the hare (since the hare itself is usually hung for a week or more) is to mix it with red wine vinegar in order to prevent it coagulating, and then to store it in a freezer.^[10][11]

Many other British cookbooks from before the middle of the 20th century have recipes for Jugged Hare. Merle and Reitch^[12] have this to say about Jugged Hare, for example:

The best part of the hare, when roasted, is the loin and the thick part of the hind leg; the other parts are only fit for stewing, hashing, or jugging. It is usual to roast a hare first, and to stew or jug the portion which is not eaten the first day. [...]

To Jug A Hare. This mode of cooking a hare is very desirable when there is any doubt as to its age, as an old hare, which would be otherwise uneatable, may be made into an agreeable dish. [...]

In 2006, a survey of 2021 people for the television channel UKTV Food found that only 1.6% of the people aged under 25 recognized Jugged Hare by name. 7 out of 10 of those people stated that they would refuse to eat Jugged Hare if it was served at the house of a friend or a relative.^[13][14]

The hare (and in recent times, rabbit) is a staple of Maltese cuisine. The dish was presented to the island's Grandmasters of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta as well as Renaissance Inquisitors resident on the island, several of whom went on to become Pope.

According to Jewish tradition, the hare is among many of the mammals deemed not Kosher and therefore not eaten by observant Jews.

In England, a now rarely-served dish was potted hare. This was similar to the dish of Potted Shrimp which can still be found today in some specialty restaurants. The hare meat is cooked, then covered in at least one inch (preferably more) of butter. The butter acts as a preservative, and the dish is stored for up to several months. It is served cold, often on bread or as an appetizer.

Folklore and mythology

"How to allure the Hare". Facsimile of a Miniature in the Manuscript of Phoebus (Fifteenth Century).

The hare in African folk tales is a trickster; some of the stories about the hare were retold among African slaves in America, and are the basis of the Brer Rabbit stories. The hare appears in English folklore in the saying "as mad as a March hare". In Irish folklore the hare is often seen as an evil creature, principally associated with witches.

Many cultures, including the Indian and Japanese, see a hare in the pattern of dark patches in the moon (see Man in the Moon); this tradition forms the basis of the Angelo Branduardi song "The Hare in the Moon"[1] The constellation Lepus represents a hare.

One of Aesop's fables tells the story of The Tortoise and the Hare.

Famous hares in fiction

A Young Hare, watercolor, 1502, by Albrecht Dürer.

Three hares

Recent (2004) research has followed the history and migration of a symbolic image of three hares with conjoined ears. In this image, three hares are seen chasing each other in a circle with their heads near its centre. While each of the animals appears to have two ears, only three ears are depicted. The ears form a triangle at the centre of the circle and each is shared by two of the hares. The image has been traced from Christian churches in the English county of Devon right back along the Silk Road to China, via Western and Eastern Europe and the Middle East. It is possible that even before its appearance in China it was actually first depicted in the Middle East before being re-imported centuries later. Its use has been found associated with Christian, Jewish, Islamic and Buddhist sites stretching back to about 600 CE.^[15]

Dreihasenfenster (Window of Three Hares) in Paderborn Cathedral

Placenames

The hare has given rise to local placenames, as they can often be repeatedly observed over many years in favoured localities. An example in Scotland is 'Murchland', the Scots for a hare being 'Murchen'.^[16]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lepus

• The Three Hares Project
• BBC Living World section about Hares