Splitting hares is no easy task

THE mad March hare season has arrived. Courtship for Ireland’s fastest mammal, the real ‘Easter bunny’, is a frantic business. Driven by the scent of females in heat, males chase prospective partners who fob them off in dramatic boxing matches.

Would-be suitors jostle and kick each other; only the fittest manage to pass their genes to the next generation. For the losers, discretion is the better part of valour.