would note in passing that there was “a bird” in the garden. I hadn’t thought that it might be the same bird, coming at the same time, to do the same things, day after day, and I felt a greater sense of connection to the wildlife around me.

Maybe the hare’s dubious reputation, I thought, has less to do with the hare itself than our habit as humans of persecuting the things that we do not understand, and our own conflicted natures.

The leveret looked even smaller in the house than it had on the track, dwarfed by any object designed for human purposes. But it seemed unafraid and made no attempt to run away from me. Its mouth was a tiny sooty line, situated on the underside of its rounded little head and curved down at both corners as if the leveret were already slightly disapp

The leveret, when fully grown, would be capable of running at between thirty to fifty miles per hour, compared to the six miles an hour managed by the average human,

“Little Warhorse,” Ernest Thompson Seton

Hundreds of thousands of hares are still shot each year in Britain for recreation, and millions in Europe as a whole, with customers often paying large sums for the pleasure. In Britain, inexplicably, hares are the only game species not protected by a closed hunting season, meaning they can be killed while pregnant or lactating.

My clumsy efforts to block its access to the plant either had not deterred it or had created an even more comforting sense of shelter.

It developed a fascination with seams—such as the one on the side of my trouser leg—and would nibble its way down, like a crimping iron, its teeth never biting but its grip firm, leaving a raised ridge as if the cloth had been ironed. It would do this with the edges of pillowcases, duvets, the trimming on a cushion, the end of a shoelace, the tasse

One day I unrolled a rug on the grass, with the intention of lounging on it and reading my book in the sun. By the time I returned with the book and a cushion, the hare had already laid claim to the carpet. It leapt and spun in circles upon it at high speed, staying within its borders; like a gymnast practising floor exercises.