126. A HARE SWIMMING.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14987, 6 June 1914, Page 8

126. A HARE SWIMMING.

-Dated May 3lst,X an interea'tin E let- ° b l erve^/ in Pa &*&h* notices changes ??h\ rl T tho ?? of their kifld i" the Mcn£ nt F' F ° r At Home Lknew only one case of a. hare taking fS.™ ♦ ater ' i, ?nd u on th « occasion" some K«f3* y * 6ch f>«iboys put ono" up"in the d£f » JJ ver, when her retreat being cut off she swam across to escape. - Une evening years ago—over thirty— l : Wfe fishing in: the Avon, near Pilgnms'. Corner, and at' that timo there wor s ,,many -hares hr the park.. The liotanical Gardens were then in a very rough state, affording them good cover, and 1 saw a hare come down the = bank on the garden eide and swim deliberate■iLs?2?- .. Since then, ,when shooting m riverbeds, I have, of ten seen hares; crossing the streams, some of which they swam, at leasta quarter of a mile m front of the guns." I too nave known hares to cross a river far ahead of the guns. "Observer" wishes to learn in what mapper a hare swims. *""-,?'* f 1 . 11 endeavour to make sure of en- I ? aw a >o«nded hare trip and fall mto a creek pool, where the banks denied escape, and it was paddling like a dog when stopped with a second cartridge..

--.„•/.. - -127;- •■'■ ■■■ - THE "WATER WIREWORM. " Certainly the "water wireworm" is well named, and if more proporl.v it should be called ahair worm, at the moment this matters not. It is never a particularly .nice, beast anyway, and when "it has contracted a habit of coming down the cold water pipes',' and doubtless wriggling itself in tue early mqrningtub, I consider its conduct simply outrageous beyond all bounds. That early morning tub has quite enough terrors of its own, without any surti added zest. Still I understand there are places where the '<water wireworm" persistently does, this thing, and then shuddenngly one must proceed to catch and cast it out of the bolus bolus—or. actions to that very naturally in this kind of mixed bathing all the best people will feel inclined to exercise a littlo care. The worst I fear must be endured, for apparently there is no method of altering affairs, unless by shifting the source ot the water supply. It is again "the female, of the. •S'>ecios" who so greatly is to blame; she lives in streams with her family and tries to arrange too much. Her eggs are deposited in long strings in some of which several hundred eggs have been counted. In about a month, according to the temperature ° f the water, these eggs hatch, and probably the greater number are devoured by water insects, after which process we are* told that somo survive and live as parasites in »he far interior of their hosts. It sounds most uncomfortable. The longest specimen I have seen measured is nineteen inches, and when discovered in a four-pound trout it seemed perfectly lifeless, but left alone fora day in a tin of water, it recovered sufficiently to twist itself into a knot of many turns, and in somo such condition 1 think the fish must have swallowed it. An allied species in England is called the "hair eel," and an idea still prevails in many parts of the country, that it is nothing else than a horsehair, which somehow has acquired life hy Jong immersion in the water, and'is destiped in due course to become an eel of tho usual sort. In proof of .this many honest but mistaken people are always ready to present themselves as witnesses who have often seen these VQ *v slender eels in various plrves. The Aob© Fontnna kept one in a drawer for three years, when although absolutely dry and hard, it soon recovered life on being out in water. Evidently a faithful but also an uncanny beast ia the "water -wireworm." .