The collective noun for hares is a husk. A husk of hares. Though I've also heard of a drove, a down, a leash, a mute, a trace, and a trip of hares. This morning, I've been sitting at my computer gazing over the field the other side of the road, entranced by the antics of a pair of hares.

After being blanketed with snow for several weeks, the temperatures have risen and the days been relatively warm and mild. With the rise in temperature, Nature suddenly started to Think Spring. Snowdrops are blooming, daffodils are peeking through, catkins are in the trees, and the hares have started their boxing matches a few weeks before they normally start their breeding season.

Hares are wonderful little creatures. They're chasing and leaping about the field, then racing up to each and rearing on their hind legs to box at each other rapidly with their front paws. This is the behaviour that gives Mad March Hares their name. It used to be thought the boxing was a aggressive/competitive thing between males. Turns out many of the 'matches' are between unreceptive females and persistent males - you go, girl!

It's hard to imagine our fields and moorlands without them, but brown hares aren't native to Britain. It's thought that they were introduced in Roman times, probably from Asia. Our true native is the mountain or white hare, but I've never seen one in the wild. They headed north with the retreat of the Ice Age and nowdays are really confined to the Scottish Highlands where they're still more common than brown hares at higher altitudes. There's just one colony of mountain hares in England, that was reintroduced to the Peak District in the 1860s. But even though they're foreign interlopers and not as glamorous as their white cousins, I still love my brown hares.

That reminds me, I once wrote a series of little pieces about hare lore for another project; I should find them and post them in The Cock, the Scythe, and the Cat mythology and folklore lounge at the Panerotica community site.