Why Do Hares Box? The Truth About Mad March Hares

What does hare boxing look like?

During a boxing bout, two European hares face each other, rise up on their long hind legs and strike out with their front paws in rapid flurries. Fur can fly and the hares may jump into the air, twist and land before rising up again. A bout often lasts only a few seconds, sometimes a little longer, and may be repeated several times.

Boxing is usually part of a bigger scene. In late winter and spring, a female hare may be followed by one or several males across an open field. The group runs, stops, sniffs and runs again. Now and then a male gets too close, and the female turns, stands up and lashes out at him. Watching from a distance, it looks like a fight between two rivals, and for centuries that is how people interpreted it.

Why female hares box males

The female, called a doe, is fertile for only a short time in each breeding cycle, often just a few hours. In the days before that, males, called bucks, follow her closely and try to stay near her. When a buck pushes too hard before she is receptive, she rejects him by standing up and hitting him, sometimes very hard.

Biologists also suggest that boxing and the long chases that follow work as a test. A female who runs off across a field forces her followers to keep up, and only the most determined and fittest male is likely to be with her at the end. In this way, boxing may help her choose a strong father for her leverets. The two explanations can work together: she pushes away males when she is not ready and tests them when she nearly is.

Do male hares fight each other?

Yes. Bucks compete for access to females, and dominant males chase off rivals and try to stay closest to a doe. These contests involve chasing, posturing and sometimes scuffles in which hares strike or bite. Torn ears and scratches are common signs of these encounters.

However, careful field studies, especially in Britain in the 1980s, showed that in the classic upright boxing bouts, one of the two hares was usually a female. The old idea that boxing is mostly males fighting over females turned out to be wrong, or at least only part of the story. This is one of the nicest examples of patient observation changing a popular belief about a familiar animal.

Why does boxing happen in spring?

European hares breed from roughly January to August, with the busiest period in March and April. At this time, many females come into breeding condition at once, and males travel widely in search of them. Normally hares feed at night and lie hidden in a form, a shallow hollow on the ground, during the day. In spring, the urge to find mates keeps them active in daylight.

Spring is also when hares are easiest to see. Crops and grass are still short, so a group of hares running and boxing in the middle of a field is visible from far away. Hares box at other times in the breeding season too, but by summer tall vegetation hides much of the action. This combination of more activity and better visibility explains why boxing is so strongly linked with March.

Where does “mad as a March hare” come from?

The English saying “mad as a March hare” describes someone acting wildly or unpredictably. It comes directly from watching hares in early spring: animals that are normally shy and secretive suddenly appear in open fields in daylight, chasing, leaping and boxing as if they had lost their senses.

The phrase has been in use since at least the early 1500s and was later made famous by the March Hare, the host of the mad tea party in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865). Other languages have their own versions of the idea, because the hares’ spring behavior is easy to see across Europe.

Which hares box?

Boxing is best known in the European hare, also called the brown hare, because it lives in open farmland across Europe where people can watch it. Other hare species, such as mountain hares and North American jackrabbits, also chase and strike at one another during the breeding season, but they are less often seen doing so in the open.

Rabbits behave differently. The European rabbit lives in colonies in burrows with a strict dominance hierarchy, and although rabbits can fight fiercely, they do not put on the same open-field boxing displays. The rabbit vs hare comparison explains other differences in how the two animals live.

How to watch boxing hares responsibly

The best chance to see boxing is on farmland or grassland where hares are common, early in the morning or late in the afternoon from about February to April. Binoculars help, because hares are easily disturbed and will run off if you walk toward them.

Stay on public paths, keep dogs on a lead and watch from a distance. Hares rely on fields and field edges to feed and raise leverets in spring, so the less you disturb them, the more natural behavior you will see. Many brown hare populations have declined in recent decades, which makes every boxing match worth watching quietly.