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HARE

A gnawing animal closely related to but larger than the rabbit and differing from the latter in that its young are usually not born in an underground burrow and are active at birth, fully furred and having open eyes. The hare is known by its divided lip, long ears, cocked tail, and for its long hind limbs and feet, so useful for a speedy escape from its enemies. The fastest hares are said to attain a speed of as much as forty-five m.p.h. (c. 72 k.p.h.). The average length of the animals, of which there are numerous varieties, is about twenty-five inches (c. .6 meter). Their usual coloration is grayish or brownish.

The hare was prohibited as food under the Law given through Moses and is referred to as a chewer of the cud. (Lev. 11:4, 6; Deut. 14:7) Hares and rabbits, of course, do not have a multi-chambered or multi-parted stomach and do not regurgitate their food for rechewing, which characteristics are associated with the scientific classification of ruminants or cud chewers. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that such modern scientific classification was not the basis for the Hebrew word for ‘cud chewing’ in Moses’ day. Hence, there is no foundation for judging the accuracy of the Bible statement by this restricted, relatively recent conception of what constitutes a cud-chewing animal, as done by many critics.

In the past, commentators with faith in the inspiration of the Bible record saw no error in the statement of the Law. Observed The Imperial Bible Dictionary (Fairbairn, 1874, Vol. I, p. 700): “It is obvious that the hare does in repose chew over and over the food which it has some time taken; and this action has always been popularly considered a chewing of the cud. Even our poet Cowper, a careful noticer of natural phenomena, who has recorded his observations on the three hares which he had domesticated, affirms that they ‘chewed the cud all day till evening.’”

Scientific observation of hares and rabbits in more recent years, however, indicates that even more than seeming cud chewing is involved. Writes François Bourlière (The Natural History of Mammals, 1954, p. 41): “The habit of ‘refection,’ or passing the food twice through the intestine instead of only once, seems to be a common phenomenon in the rabbits and hares. Domestic rabbits usually eat and swallow without chewing their night droppings, which form in the morning as much as half the total contents of the stomach. In the wild rabbit refection takes place twice daily, and the same habit is reported for the European hare. . . . It is believed that this habit provides the animals with large amounts of B vitamins produced by bacteria in the food within the large intestine.” On the same point, the work Mammals of the World (Vol. II, p. 647) notes: “This may be similar to ‘chewing the cud’ in ruminant mammals.”