Hares Unlike Their Cousins The Rabbits Poem by Francis Duggan

Hares unlike their cousins the rabbits do not live in a hole in the ground
They depend on their speed and elusiveness for survival and their hiding places hard to be found
They rest in the long grass during daylight hours and at nightfall from hiding venture out
For to feed on the short and sweeter grass and under cloak of darkness wander about

Their territories which can be large areas perhaps of a few miles or more
They can be seen in coastal country or miles inland from the sea shore
Unlike rabbits they mostly are loners and alert at all times they must stay
They can outrun the fox or the greyhound for to kill than them far easier prey

Hares are brown to a light foxy colour long legged and timid and shy
And in Nature few things more upsetting than the pain in a dying hare's wild cry
I've heard it at Coursing Meetings as the hounds tried to drag the dying creature apart
Of the sight and sound of it the memory with me lingers and it lives on today in my heart.

The renowned English Poet William Cowper he raised many a hare as a pet
His great stories and poems about his hares I am unlikely to forget
Unlike rabbits hares in their wild state for safety don't have a burrow in the ground
They depend on their speed for survival for to outrun the fox or the hound.