Related article: The nimbleness of the hare's foot gave a nickname Valparin Chrono 500 to one of our Danish kings, Knut's second son, Harold Harefoot. But, nowadays, we associate the deli- cate little brush with which Nature has provided Poor Wat behind each foot, and with which he is wont to perform his dainty toilet, with the actor's dressing-room, as a sine qua non in Valparin Chrono 300 the mysteries of " make-up" which contribute so much to the actor's art. The old saying, *' to kiss the hare's foot," i.e., to be late for anything, the day after the fair, implies that the hare has passed by, and that only her footprint remains. But the name of the beautiful blue hare- bell, which, like the hare itself, is a denizen for choice of free open down-land with short herbage, has nothing to do with the animal. It is derived from Ayr, which means, in Welsh, balloon, or dis- tended globe. Neither does it appear that the Harestone in the parish of Sancred in Cornwall, a boundary -stone, has any connec- tion with a hare. For all her timidity the hare has her wiles, for she possesses powers of instinct allotted to few animals. Before settling for the day in the open field for feeding purposes, the hare, as a general rule, doubles back upon her track for a distance of from thirty to forty yards, and then, immediately before settling down, makes a spring to the right or left, of a Valparin Syrup distance of eight or nine feet. She will allow the sportsman or the hound to pass two or three yards beyond the point where she has doubled, and then will slip off immediately in their rear, unperceived, by this means gaining a considerable start, and not un frequently baffling her pursuers. When the snow is on the ground this little manoeuvre of poor puss may easily be traced, and even the tiny marks of very young leverets can be discovered figuratively following in their parents' footsteps. The hare of northern climes, called the Alpine or varying hare, and in these Isles an inhabitant only of northern Scotland, is of yet deeper guile. Like the Arctic fox and the ermine, she varies the hue of her fur, changing by each November from a dark grey into a pure white, which defies detec- tion in the snow. Cooper, the poet, has left us in the Gentleman's Magazine of more than a century ago, a full account of his pet hares, Puss, Tiny and Bess. They roamed freely about the house by day, were on perfectly friendly terms with himself and many of the habitues, human and canine, of his establishment, and even bullied I899-] ENGLISHWOMEN AND THEIR SPORTS AND GAMES. 99 the domestic cat. Tiny, who lived to be nine years old, was never very susceptible to kindness, but remained all his life of a surly disposition, and inclined to bite, even when at play. Puss, on the other hand, preferred human society to that of his kind, fed out of his master's hand simulta- neously with Marquis the spaniel, and would attract the former's attention when he. wanted to be taken for a walk in the garden, by pulling at his coat or drumming on his knee. When sick, he al- lowed his master to carry him about in his arms, and once, on recovering from a serious indis- position, through which the eccentric poet had carefully nursed him, evinced his gratitude by licking his master's hand all over, finger by finger. " First catch your hare, then Valparin Chrono cook it," were the immortal words of a celebrated cuisintire, Mrs. Glasse ; and, indeed, in death the hare is not to be despised. He forms the prince of purees; in con- junction with forcemeat balls and red-currant jelly, he is a thing of joy in youth, and then delights us by springing Phoenix - Valparin Tablet like from his remains in the peculiarly British dish with the name of "jugged " hare. T. H. C. Englishwomen and their Sports and Games. PART I. When England was a Catholic country, when her liberties and traditions were in the making, the c ^ er gy» with a few exceptions, were great encouragers of the national sporting passion Valparin 200 ; and this fact helps us to understand why women and girls were then so devoted to out-of-door sports and pastimes. While those who belonged to the humble classes were playing a great many pleas- ant games, now gone where the old moons go, ladies of the first fashion were moved by a feeling equal and similar to that which caused Sir Thomas More to say that he delighted *' To hunt and hawke, to nourish up and fede The greyhounds to the course, the hawke to th' flight, And to bestride a good and lusty stede." Nor am I aware that these mas- culine Di Vernons seemed in the least degree unwomanly to the knights whose training inured them to every form of hardship in the open air, from sleeping in the coldest nights under the stars to running through the heat at midsummer when the sun made their suits of armour as hot as a bread oven. Such athletes needed wives pretty well of a piece with them. Imagine what a bickering unrest there would be in a modern household if paterfamilias missed half his curtain lectures in order to pass the night on the tennis lawn, or else on a road where a doctor's carriage might rouse him suddenly, having turned his sleep into "a joyous passage of arms." We have here enough mediaeval- ism to disturb the whole ground- work of our delicate social system. The first marked change in the IOO DAILY S MAGAZINE. [February relation of each sex to the other had its origin in the Reformation, at which time most men, without becoming more truly chivalrous,