Michelle Allen, age 90, of Winston Salem, N.C., for her question:
IS THE HARE A RABBIT?
Not too long ago, rabbits were classified as rodents. Because they have chisel like front teeth for gnawing, they have some of the habits you find in rats. Rabbits, however, have a pair of small teeth behind the upper front teeth. And now they are definitely classified in their own family, the Leporidae. With the rabbit in this family is the hare.
Hares are often mistaken for rabbits, but they belong to their own animal order.
You'll find that a hare is usually larger and has longer legs and ears than does cousin rabbit. Also, hares never dig burrows as do rabbits.
The hare is a small, furry animal with tremendously long and powerful hind legs. When a baby hare is born, his eyes are immediately open and he has a full coat of fur. Rabbits, on the other hand, are always born naked and blind.
Names often get mixed up. The jack rabbit and the snowshoe rabbit are both hares. The famous Belgian hare, often trained for shows, is actually a breed of rabbit.
A hare will usually grow to be about 25 inches long. He has brown, gray, white or buff colored fur. He has a bushy white tail that is usually easy to see when he runs. The hare also has a split upper lip.
Hares are vegetarians and enjoy diets of plants. They usually spend the nights out looking for food, and then return to their homes at dawn. Their homes, called forms, are usually grassy hollows often sheltered with bushes and rocks.
By the time a hare is 6 months old, he finds a mate and then produces two or three litters of babies each year. Each litter will have between two and five babies. The babies, by the way, are called leverets.
You'll find both rabbits and hares in Africa, Australia, Europe, New Zealand and in all parts of North, Central and South America.
In some parts of the Western United States, man has killed off the animals that hunt hares, and as a result the hares in these regions have multiplied so quickly that they have become pests and have seriously damaged many farm crops.
Enemies of hares and rabbits besides man include coyotes, foxes, mink, dogs and weasels. Hawks, owls and some other birds also hunt them for food.
A very famous hare is the March Hare, one of the popular characters in Lewis Carroll's classic story, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.'' There's a common phrase in our language that suggests a person can be " as mad as a March hare.'' The expression comes from the fact that hares are most active in spring and especially in March. They get excited at that time, often thumping the ground with their powerful hind legs, jumping up and down and also twisting their bodies in the air. If you saw the act, you would agree that it is indeed mad.