Hare

HARE. This animal is about the size of a Rabbit, but something larger. There is no creature so fruitful as an Hare. It is no uncommon thing to find female Hares actually suckling, and at the same time big with young, some with their Hair already grown; and others more or less formed according to the difference of the times wherein they are conceived. There are likewise Hares to be seen which are both male and female, and use both sexes. I have met with very credible persons, who have assured me, that they have seen and had experience of there being Hares of this kind. It is affirmed, that the Hares upon the Alps are white, while those Mountains are covered with snow, and that afterwards they become grey again like others; which I can scarce believe. Those of them which are white, acquired this colour while they were in the old one’s belly; the whiteness of the snow having made an impression on the dam, as Rabbits take the colour which is shewn the old one at the time of her conceiving.

The Hebrews esteem this to be an unclean animal; perhaps because in Palestine it is subject to the mange and leprosy like Foxes. Some Physicians are of opinion, that the flesh of this creature is dry, and promotes melancholy, that it causes obstructions in the spleen and liver, that it is hurtful to the lungs, and hinders people from sleeping¹. The Romans, on the contrary, set a great value on it:

Moses ranks it among the unclean creatures, notwithstanding its chewing the cud, because it divided not the hoof. Nam & ipse ruminat, sed ungulam non dividit. Its foot is split into several nails; which alone is sufficient for its being declared unclean. At present people are persuaded that the Hare Confer Deut. xiv. 7.doth not chew the cud: but in Moses’s time they were in all probability of another opinion; for the Naturalists agree, that it does not chew the cud, and we know of no Author besides Moses, who has written that it Hist. Animal. l. 3. c. 22.does. Aristotle has observed, that the Hare has this in common with animals, which chew the cud, that we find something curdled in its stomach. Pope Zachary in his Epistle to St. Boniface, Archbishop of Mentz, exhorts Christians to abstain from the flesh of Hares. Fur ther, Interpreters are divided concerning the signification of the Hebrew, Arnebeth. They agree that it signifies an Hare.

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