The great speed of the hare in running is chiefly due to the fact that the hind legs are longer than the fore. This is also the reason why it can run better up hill than down. Generally it utters a sound only when it sees itself in danger. This cry resembles that of a little child, being a shrill scream or squeak. Among the perceptive senses of the hare, hearing is best developed; the smell is fairly keen, but sight is rather deficient. Prudence and vigilance are its most prominent characteristics. The slightest noise--the wind rustling in the leaves, a falling leaf--suffices to excite its attention and awaken it from sleep. Dietrich Aus Dem Winckell says that the greatest vice of the hare is its malice, not because it expresses it in biting and scratching, but because it often proves its disposition in the most revolting manner, the female by denying her maternal love, and the male by his cruelty to the little leverets. It is said that captive hares are easily tamed, become readily used to all kinds of nourishment usually fed to rabbits, but are very delicate and apt to die. If they are fed only on hay, bread, oats, and water, and never anything green, they live longer. A tame hare, in the possession of Mr. Fuchs in Wildenberg, which slept and ate with his dogs, ate vegetable food only in default of meat--veal, pork, liver, and sausage causing it to go into such raptures that it would execute a regular dance to get at these dainties. Besides the flesh, which as food is justly esteemed, the fur of the hare is also put to account. The skin is deprived of its hair, tanned and used in the manufacture of shoes, of one kind of parchment, and of glue; the hair is used in the manufacture of felt. Mark Twain, in his "Roughing It," gives this humorous and characteristic description of the jack rabbit: