He asked me to bring it into the surgery as he ought to X-ray the leg. I feared that the experience, if not fatal, might shatter its trust in me. The leveret had never been put in a sealed box or transported, and I imagined its sensitive heart pounding away in such a confined space until it gave out.

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

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.

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,

I busied myself with work and gave philosophical replies to anyone who asked about the hare, hiding my sadness at its disappearance, and feeling guilty for my absence.

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.

The intensification of agriculture has been described as the “superfactor” leading to the decline of the hare population. The dramatic increase in the frequency of the mowing of fields as a result of modern farming methods, the ripping out of hedges to create vast fields to increase crop yields and accommodate huge machinery, and the rise in

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

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.