As Chloe Dalton will tell you, rabbits of the cottontail, burrow-digging, Easter time variety are far different from hares. The face of the hare is longer, for one, and they are larger. They do not dig warrens but build nests under cover of tall weeds and grass. They are less commonly sighted than rabbits, due both to a preternatural propensity to make swift getaways at the first whiff of anyone approaching and to their shrinking numbers thanks to hunting and habitat destruction. This makes them so difficult to study as a species that, as Dalton embarked on the project of raising the day-old leveret (baby hare) she discovered by the road, she found that her experience of dwelling in close proximity to this small, wild thing frequently disproved the little she was able to find in books about their needs and habits.
An erstwhile political advisor, Dalton had been cooped up alone in her country home during the COVID-19 pandemic when she found the helpless hare. In her magical, endearing memoir, Raising Hare, Dalton describes this rare experience of spending her days in a deep and unusual intimacy with one of England’s most wary and timid creatures. Reluctant to interfere with the animal’s innate wildness, Dalton hesitates to initiate too much contact with the leveret, or indeed even give it a name. But the tiny animal nevertheless extends its influence over Dalton’s entire world.
Dalton’s once jet-setting, busy life takes on the same quiet rhythms of the surprisingly companionable creature. Dalton describes sunlit moments of sitting quietly at her desk with the hare nearby, noticing the minute variation of nature all around her cottage and taking cues from her small friend in the project of slowing down. Her efforts, which include bottle-feeding the neonate, do not result in an adult hare that is tame but rather a wild animal that happens to hold a particular human in high regard.
Dalton’s memoir expands on the relatively little knowledge we have about this enchanting species, while also serving gentle commentary on the state of wildlife and the need to preserve their habitats. Lyrical and British in a way that, appropriately, echoes Beatrix Potter, Raising Hare is a sweet and curious meditation on what we gain when we allow the natural world to teach us.
