5.25
Hunters seldom visit the desert islands, and there are few people in the inhabited ones, and most of them are not sportsmen; and if an island is consecrated, one may not even take dogs into it. Since, then, but few of the old hares and the leverets that they produce are exterminated by hunting, they are bound to be abundant.
5.26
The sight of the hare is not keen for several reasons. The eyes are prominent; the lids are too small and do not give protection to the pupils; consequently the vision is weak and blurred.
5.27
Added to this, though the animal spends much time asleep, it gets no benefit from that, so far as seeing goes. Its speed, too, accounts in no small degree for its dim sight. For it glances at an object and is past it in a flash, before realising its nature.
5.28
And those terrors, the hounds, close behind them when they are pursued combine with these causes to rob them of their wits. The consequence is that the hare bumps against many obstacles unawares and plunges into the net.
5.29
If she ran straight, she would seldom meet with this mishap. But instead of that she comes round and hugs the place where she was born and bred, and so is caught. In a fair run she is seldom beaten by the hounds owing to her speed. Those that are caught are beaten in spite of their natural characteristics through meeting with an accident. Indeed, there is nothing in the world of equal size to match the hare as a piece of mechanism. For the various parts that make up her body are formed as follows.
