Brown hare
Description: It is not known when Brown Hares first arrived in the Isle of Man but the likelihood is that they were introduced by people. There is documentary evidence for their presence here in medieval times, possibly brought in by the Stanleys, the family of English aristocrats which were granted the Lordship of Mann in 1405.
Hares have been around on the Island for long enough to earn a place in Manx folklore. In 'A Second Manx Scrapbook', it is recorded that the shape of the hare was believed to be that assumed most often by witches: "A lady wrote to the Reverand Sabine Baring-Gould in the latter part of the nineteenth century complaining that she could not get her servants to eat hare, because it might be some old woman in a transformed state."
Taxonomic name: Lepus europaeus
Collection: Natural History Zoology Collection
ID number: 2004-0075