Do rabbits lay eggs?
| 14:41 UK time, Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Ever wondered why rabbits are associated with Easter?
According to ancient European folklore our familiar egg-laden Easter bunny was in fact originally a hare - an ancient symbol of new life and fertility due, just like the rabbit, to its prolific breeding and also its madcap springtime mating antics.
Pagan myths surrounding mysterious egg-laying hares seem to have stemmed from the similarity between shallow hollows or 'forms' used by hares to rest and rear their young, and the nests of birds such as plovers or lapwings - also built at ground level on open grassland or arable farmland.
As such, people would sometimes find eggs in what looked like hare forms - giving rise to the belief that hares laid eggs in spring.
Here in Wales, hares are also widely represented in .
However, despite their firm foothold in folklore a steady drop in hare numbers during more recent times fails to reflect their status as a traditional symbol of spring.
In fact, some studies have shown . This is partly due to modern farming practices and changing patterns of land use.
The species has little legal protection either and is the only game species in Britain which doesn't have a close shooting season.
Because of this decline the brown hare has been deemed a species since the mid 1990s and among the aims are a doubling of the population by the year 2010.
Here's truly hoping then that it's not a case of 'hare' today and gone tomorrow for these wonderful creatures.
Happy Easter!
Want to know more?
The Easter Bunny on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ h2g2
on Wkipedia
Comment number 1.
At 2nd Nov 2009, Jon wrote:Are you sure this wasn't posted on April the 1st ?
Hare shaped eggs? surely isnt the nature of eggs and rabbits just the mixing of two different type of imagery depicting the same thing?
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]Rabbit
Complain about this comment (Comment number 1)
Comment number 2.
At 19th Dec 2009, U14267626 wrote:Wide-ranging topics also include Western occultism, and folklore,
Complain about this comment (Comment number 2)