March Hare = marsh hare = Nutria?

[Axel_Wheeler]

If Erasmus’ original expression was “marsh hare”, could he have been referring to a nutria? For a description of this entirely mad beast by one Cecil Adams (a tad mad himself), check out:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_019.html

A key component of the answer to this question is whether nutria existed at that time and place.

If not a nutria, what was Erasmus referring to? (or “To what was Erasmus referring?” for the grammatically retentive.)

[samclem]

The Erasmus statement about mad as a marsh hare comes from Dex’s article

[Axel_Wheeler]

Yes, I know. That’s where I read it.

It’s unlikely to have been a nutria, since Cecil makes it sound like a South American animal that probably wouldn’t have existed in Europe, but here’s my question:

What is a marsh hare? What was Erasmus referring to?

[samclem]

Axel I know you know, but I’m letting everyone else know. You need to link to what column you are referring.

Muskrat is a link to what a marsh hare might be/may have been. Something tells me it is/was.

[Axel_Wheeler]

Thanks, Sam.

Isn’t it odd that both characters, the March Hare and the Mad Hatter, seem to have had their origin in aquatic rodents? (Muskrats and Beavers (their pelts, anyway) respectively)

I suppose it’s possible that LC did this deliberately, but it seems doubtful, inasmuch as he just needed to personify two idioms of madness, and animal pelts don’t add value to a children’s story.

I bet Alice asked, “Mr. Dodgeson, why are hatters mad?” and, to which he probably replied, “I don’t know, dear, I don’t know.”

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

Er, no, sorry, the March Hare was not a muskrat.

Here’s the relevant paragraph from the Staff Report:

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mmadhatter.html

Apparently Erasmus (1466?-1536), the Dutch Renaissance scholar and theologian, wrote the expression “mad as marsh hare,” and there is now some speculation that this got corrupted to “March” in later decades. However, long before Carroll was writing, the expression was “mad as a March Hare,” regardless of scientific validity.

I don’t see why “marsh” couldn’t be just a late 15th century way of saying “March”. The three Google hits that came up for “Erasmus marsh hare” all seemed to assume that it should be read as “marsh (or March) hare”.

http://www.pathcom.com/~newmoon/course23.htm

. The saying, “mad as a March (or marsh) hare” is attributed to 15th Century Erasmus, who was refering to either the animals’ vigorous mating displays, or their bouts of wild bounding over wetlands in the springtime.

From Sam’s muskrat link. Muskrats are not native to Europe, and were not there during the 15th century.

The muskrat is widely distributed throughout Alaska, Canada, and the United States; except for the Arctic region, much of California, Southwest Texas, and Florida. As a transplant, it is also established in Europe and Asia. In 1905, a European prince brought five muskrats back to Europe with him after an Alaskan hunting trip and placed them in ponds on an estate near Prague. All the muskrats in Europe today are probably descended from those five animals.

Also, there are no references anywhere to muskrats being “mad”.

Nutria (coypu) are not native to Europe, and as far as I can tell, were not there during the 15th century.
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/myocastor/m._coypus$n arrative.html

Geographic Range
Neotropical: Myocastor coypus is native to South America. Its distribution ranges from middle Bolivia and southern Brazil to Tierra del Fuego. As a result of escapes and liberations from fur farms, feral populations now occur in Europe, Asia, and North America. Woods et al. (1992)

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/myocastor/m._coypus$n arrative.html

A demand for the fur of the nutria developed in the early 19th century and has continued to the present. For this reason the nutria has been introduced almost worldwide, and the nutrias’ fur soon became an important economic resource.

History of Argentina:

http://www.shadow.net/~giorgio/argentina.html

In February 1516, the Spanish navigator Juan Diaz de Solis, then engaged in search of a southwest passage to the East Indies, piloted his vessel into the great estuary now known as the Rio de la Plata and claimed the surrounding region in the name of Spain. Sebastian Cabot, an Italian navigator in the service of Spain, visited the estuary in 1526.

Colonization of the region was begun in 1535 by the Spanish soldier Pedro de Mendoza.

Erasmus died in 1536. Not enough time for nutria to have been discovered, brought to Europe, released into the wild, and become successful enough for a Dutch naturalist to have observed their behavior and to have been referring to them as “mad”. And why are there no other references to nutria as “mad” by anybody else?

History of Brazil:

http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Cafe/9327/history.htm

Brazil was discovered on April 22nd, 1500 by a Portuguese navigator, Pedro Álvares Cabral.

Just barely possible, but the big problem is, there aren’t any references anywhere else to nutria acting “mad”. Animal control specialists in the U.S. and Europe have been dealing with them for a long time now, and nobody’s ever observed them behaving oddly. And, as noted, the fashion for nutria coats didn’t start until 300 years after Brazil had been discovered.

So it wasn’t a muskrat,and it wasn’t a nutria. What was it then?

A table of rabbits and hares. In Europe you basically have the brown hare, the mountain hare, and the European rabbit (not a cottontail).

http://www.geobop.com/Mammals/Lagomorpha/Leporidae/2.htm

Partial list of UK mammals. Pick a candidate. AFAIK, none of these species has ever been associated with “madness”. Except for hares and squirrels, but I’ve never heard anybody associate squirrels with marshes.

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/mammal/endanger.htm

The otter was widespread in the 1950s but just twenty years later had disappeared from most of England and Wales. Only now are conservation measures beginning to reverse the decline.
The dormouse has disappeared from half the range it was present in during the last century.
The red squirrel is extinct over most of England and Wales.
Bats. Populations of the 14 species which breed in Britain have all declined in recent decades. Pipistrelle numbers fell by 60% between 1978- 1986. Greater and lesser horseshoe bats are endangered, the barbastelle is very poorly known and the mouse-eared bat became extinct in 1991.
The water vole is suffering from a major long-term decline.
The pine marten, once found within 30 miles of London, is now largely confined to remote areas in Scotland.
The wildcat was once found throughout mainland Britain but is now confined to parts of Scotland.
The polecat was once widespread but is now extinct in Scotland and most of England. Fortunately it is on the increase in Wales and the adjacent English counties.
The brown hare is showing signs of a general decline.
The mountain hare is locally vulnerable, especially the isolated, small (and only) English population in the Peak District.

From the Staff Report, again:

…that two British scientists (Anthony Holley and Paul Greenwood, in Nature, June 7, 1984) made extensive observations of the behaviors of hares in the spring, and found no evidence that male hares go into a frenzy during the March rutting season. They concluded that the main courtship behavior of male hares during the entire breeding period (many months) is chasing females and then boxing with them. Behavior in March is no different from any other month.

I can’t find the Holley-Greenwood study on the Web anywhere, not even any references to it.

Mountain hares.

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/mammal/mhare.htm

Male mountain hares are sexually mature each year before females, and mating takes place from the end of January onwards; gestation is 50 days. The season of births of leverets varies between years but is mainly in the months of March-July. Neither females nor males, are known to breed in their year of birth. Females show a range of reproductive strategies producing between one and four litters, of 1-3 offspring, but occasionally more. Larger females breed earlier, and females in their first year suffer higher prenatal mortality in their earliest litter. Their reproductive behaviour is similar to that of Brown hares, with several males chasing a single female who may rebuff them by boxing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/wildfacts/uk_mammals/fact_files/195.s html

The female mountain hare gives birth to a litter of 1-5 leverets after a gestation period of 50 days. The breeding season is between February and September.

Brown hares.

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/mammal/hare.htm

What is “March madness”?
This is part of hare breeding behaviour. The rapid chases are a dominant male driving a rival away from a female he is guarding. “Boxing” is usually a rebuff given by a female to an over-amorous male.

Breeding takes place between February and September and a female can rear three or four litters a year, each of two to four young.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/wildfacts/uk_mammals/fact_files/192.s html

Females can have up to 3 litters a year, and on average, gives birth to 4 young (known as leverets), after a gestation period of 41-42 days.

http://www.ccw.gov.uk/biodiv/brownhar.htm

During the spring months brown hares can also often be seen during the day whilst engaged in various acts of courtship. These include chasing and leaping, as well as more unusual forms of behaviour which resemble boxing, hence the term ‘mad march hare’.

http://enquire.hertscc.gov.uk/hbrc/speciesmaps/brown_hare.htm

Breeding occurs between February and September and March is a good time of year to observe hares chasing and boxing each other.

So the brown hare has a gestation period of 40 days, more or less. Saying that she can have 3 litters a year doesn’t mean “spaced out through the year”, it means between spring and fall. If she gets pregnant with the first litter at the beginning of March, she delivers them 6 weeks later, in the middle of April. Give her two weeks to wean them and get pregnant gain, say she’s pregnant by the beginning of May, then she has the second litter in the middle of June. Two weeks later, at the beginning of July, she’s pregnant, has the third litter in the middle of August. Holley and Greenwood only observed their animals in the spring.

…made extensive observations of the behaviors of hares in the spring…

Then how can they say, “Behavior in March is no different from any other month”, if they never observed them in any other month? As you can see, there is no real “rutting season” for hares–the breeding season is all spring and summer. It’s not the same thing as the rutting season for deer and elk, where ALL the females suddenly come into estrus during the same very short time period.

People in previous centuries, who didn’t need a research grant to go out there and watch animals for a set period of time, would have observed that hares in January didn’t “box” and hares in March did. And by the time April rolled around, everybody was too busy with spring planting to go out and look at hares, so nobody ever really noticed that hares in April, May, June, July, August, and September “box”, too.

The simplest explanation is the best. Erasmus meant “a March hare”, a hare in spring.

[Axel_Wheeler]

Sounds reasonable. My presumption that a marsh hare was a muskrat was based on the fact that muskrats are also known as marsh hares. But if they didn’t exist at that time and place, then they are not the source of the March Hare. So much for their fifteen minutes of fame.

Here’s OED Onlines 2nd definition of Hare & two earliest citations listed:

b. The male or buck hare is sometimes called Jack hare. During March (the breeding season) hares are wilder
than at other times; hence the proverbial saying as mad as a March hare.

1529 MORE Supp. Soulys Wks. 299/2 As mad not as a march hare, but as a madde dogge.

a1631 DRAYTON Nymphidia, Oberon…grew as mad as any hare, When he had sought each place with care, And found his queen was missing.

Marsh hare got no results!

So this notion that March Hare derives from marsh hare is nonsense? It’s certainly popular. But nonsense often is.

Thanks for the great research, DDG!

[C_K_Dexter_Haven]

Just because a muskrat is now sometimes called a “marsh hare” does not mean that there was not something else called a “marsh hare” in 16th Century Holland. Also, we’re talking translation into English.

<< I suppose it’s possible that LC did this [referred to two animals, hare and beaver] deliberately >> … Unlikely that Carroll even knew of the beaver connection to Mad Hatters. My guess is that the knowledge that hatters’ shakes came from mercury, related to preparing beaver felt, din’t come until lonnnnnng after Carroll wrote.

[John_W.Kennedy]

Are we talking about translation? Erasmus spent some time in England.

[Colibri]

I can scarcely add anything to Duck Duck Goose’s detailed research, except to point out that “nutria” in Spanish properly refers to the otter. Argentine colonists incorrectly applied the name to the large aquatic rodent of their area (better called “coypu”), and that is the name it is generally called in English. In Latin American countries, otters are often called “gato de agua” (water cat) or “perro de agua” (water dog) rather than by their correct Spanish name.

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

I’m personally convinced we’re looking at a simple linguistics misunderstanding, not a “mysterious critter” problem.

Also, we’re talking translation into English.

Er, um, I was not aware that the Erasmus quote was not in its original language. If that were true, then of course all bets would be off, and this whole issue would be totally moot. We wouldn’t be talking about what Erasmus said but what his translator said. His main works were written in Latin and then translated by other people (see below). Where was this quote originally found, anyway? In what work? It was my understanding that the quote stands as is, that Erasmus himself said, or wrote, in English, “Mad as a marsh hare.” Where do you see that it was originally in another language? I believe it was originally in English.

The simplest explanation is the best. Erasmus wrote “mad as a Marsh hare” because that was the way he happened to be pronouncing it, back at the end of the 15th century.

http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/e/erasmus.htm

Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, Dutch humanist and theologian, was born at Rotterdam, Holland, October 27, probably 1466. He died at Basel, Switzerland, on July 12, 1536.

In 1495, Erasmus went to study theology at the University of Paris, then the chief seat of the later scholastic learning. Erasmus, however, found life at the university distasteful and soon departed. The chief centers of his activity from then on were Paris, France; Louvain, Belgium; Basel, Switzerland; and various parts of England.

He lived three years in Italy, from 1506-09.

…These, like all the writing of Erasmus, were in Latin, but they were at once translated into the common languages of the European peoples, a process which received the hearty approval of Erasmus himself.

I find it hard to believe that someone like Erasmus wouldn’t have spoken French, Italian, and English, as well as Latin and Dutch.

Words for “March”.
[ul]
[li]Dutch–Maart[/li][li]French–Mars (since most often the terminal “s” is not pronounced in French, I’m assuming it’s pronounced “Mar”)[/li][li]Italian–Marzo (pronounced “Mart-zo”)[/li][li]Latin–Martius[/li][/ul]
There are two possible ways to pronounce this, neither of which is the 20th century English “Marshus”. It can be pronounced mar-tsee-us. Or it can be pronounced mar-tee-us

http://forvmcoins.hypermart.net/Ancient_Coin_Articles/latin_pronunciation_guide.htm

Unfortunately, there are several different ways to pronounce Latin. This is to be expected from a language that has been used in different cultures for different purposes for well over two millennia. The pronunciations discussed here are the reconstructed “classical” pronunciations. These are used by classicists today and are probably very close to the way Romans talked during the late Republic and early Empire. There is also “ecclesiastical Latin,” which is pronounced much like Italian… Finally we must not forget the common modern pronunciations that develop as Latin words are used today…Here I will give the rules and pronunciations for classical Latin, which can be used anywhere, particularly among academics.

So, Marsh, March, Mart, Mar-tsee-us, Mar-tee-us, Mart-zo, Mar–they’re all really about the same. It’s been 500 years. Languages change, so do pronunciations. In English, “daughter” used to rhyme with “laughter”, and “love” used to rhyme with “move”. Why go to the extreme trouble of postulating the existence of a mysterious Dutch critter that may have been referred to as a “marsh hare”, when there’s such a simple explanation ready to hand?

But, in order to be accommodating, I will postulate the existence of a mysterious 15th century Dutch critter known as a “marsh hare”.

My guess would be that anything known as a “marsh hare” in Holland in the 15th century would have been the same thing as a “marsh hare” in America in the early 19th Century, i.e. a “swamp rabbit”.

Rare-Prints Online Gallery of Prints and Books

Imperial Folio Edition of the
Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America

In the summer of 1843, John James Audubon and his son embarked on his last drawing expedition up the Missouri River. Audubon’s goal was to document all of the mammals of North America. The original drawings for this edition were completed by Audubon and his son John Woodhouse Audubon. J.T. Bowen produced the hand colored lithographs in Philadelphia between 1845 and 1848. This is considered the finest 19th century work in the field of American Mammalogy. There are 150 plates in the edition and approximately 300 sets were published. Dimensions 28" x 22".

Ladies and gentlemen–Audubon’s Marsh Hare! It is quite clearly a rabbit. Note the lack of the large staring yellow eye, the distinguishing characteristic of the hares. Note the relatively short ears.

American rabbits and hares.

http://www.geobop.com/Mammals/Lagomorpha/Leporidae/2.htm

eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus): This species is ranges from southern Manitoba & Quebec through eastern United States into northern South America (Venezuela) and has been widely introduced, including the Pacific Northwest. The eastern cottonail inhabits a tremendous variety of habitats, including tropical, temperate hardwood, and boreal (northern) forests, grasslands, swamps, deserts, fields, and farms.

…most hares live in open country, including northern tundra (arctic hare and tundra hare) or grasslands and deserts (jack rabbits).

However, Erasmus wasn’t talking about just a “marsh hare”. He was talking about “mad as a marsh hare”. AFAIK, rabbits don’t have any particular reputation for madness, unless you’re counting Jimmy Carter’s “killer rabbit”. (Am I the only one who remembers that?)

Eh, I think we should all stop looking for a mysterious Dutch critter. The trouble is, there just aren’t any candidates. Here’s another partial list of European mammals. I’ve taken out the obviously wrong ones, like polar bears and Barbary apes. I don’t see anything other than rabbits and hares that could be a “marsh hare”.
http://www.european-mammals.org/emmalist.htm

The EMMA species list
Species list for the area covered by the Atlas of European Mammals. This includes western Europe as far east as the border of Russia (though Kaliningrad is included), Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova. The Atlantic islands of The Azores, Madeira and The Canary Islands are also included.

Taxonomy follows Wilson, D & Reeder, D (1993) Mammal Species of the World with only a few exceptions.

Marsupialia
Macropus rufogriseus (Desmarest, 1817) Red-necked wallaby

Insectivora
Atelerix algirus (Lereboullet, 1842) Algerian hedgehog
Erinaceus concolor Martin, 1838 Eastern hedgehog
Erinaceus europaeus Linnaeus, 1758 Western hedgehog
Sorex alpinus Schinz, 1837 Alpine shrew
Sorex araneus Linnaeus, 1758 Common shrew
Sorex caecutiens Laxmann, 1788 Masked shrew
Sorex coronatus Millet, 1828 Millet’s shrew
Sorex granarius Miller, 1910 Spanish shrew
Sorex isodon Turov, 1924 Taiga shrew
Sorex minutissimus Zimmermann, 1780 Least shrew
Sorex minutus Linnaeus, 1766 Pygmy shrew
Sorex samniticus Altobello, 1926 Appenine shrew
Neomys anomalus Cabrera, 1907 Miller’s water shrew
Neomys fodiens (Pennant, 1771) Water shrew
Crocidura canariensis Hutterer, López-Jurado & Vogel, 1987 Canary shrew
Crocidura leucodon (Hermann, 1780) Bi-coloured white-toothed shrew
Crocidura osorio Molina & Hutterer, 1989 Osorio shrew
Crocidura russula (Hermann, 1780) Greater white-toothed shrew
Crocidura sicula Miller, 1900 Sicilian shrew
Crocidura suaveolens (Pallas, 1811) Lesser white-toothed shrew
Crocidura zimmermanni Wettstein, 1953 Cretan white-toothed shrew
Suncus etruscus (Savi, 1822) Pygmy white-toothed shrew

Galemys pyrenaicus (E. Geoffroy, 1811) Pyrenean desman

Talpa caeca Savi, 1822 Blind mole
Talpa europaea Linnaeus, 1758 Common mole
Talpa occidentalis Cabrera, 1907 Iberian mole
Talpa romana Thomas, 1902 Roman mole
Talpa stankovici V. Martino & E. Martino, 1931 Balkan mole

Lagomorpha
Lepus capensis Linnaeus, 1758 Cape hare
Lepus castroviejoi Palacios, 1977 Broom hare
Lepus corsicanus de Winton, 1898 Corsican hare
Lepus europaeus Pallas, 1778 Brown hare
Lepus granatensis Rosenhauer, 1856 Iberian hare
Lepus timidus Linnaeus, 1758 Mountain hare

Oryctolagus cuniculus (Linnaeus, 1758) Rabbit
Sylvilagus floridanus (J. A. Allen, 1890) Eastern cottontail rabbit

Rodentia
Sciurus anomalus Güldenstaedt, 1785 Persian squirrel
Sciurus carolinensis Gmelin, 1788 Grey squirrel
Sciurus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758 Red squirrel
Callosciurus erythraeus (Pallas, 1779) Pallas’s squirrel
Callosciurus finlaysonii (Horsfield, 1824) Thailand tree squirrel
Atlantoxerus getulus (Linnaeus, 1758) Barbary ground squirrel

Marmota marmota (Linnaeus, 1758) Alpine marmot

Spermophilus citellus (Linnaeus, 1766) European souslik
Spermophilus suslicus (Güldenstaedt, 1770) Spotted souslik

Tamias sibiricus (Laxmann, 1769) Siberian chipmunk

Pteromys volans (Linnaeus, 1758) Russian flying squirrel

Castor canadensis Kuhl, 1820 American beaver
Castor fiber Linnaeus, 1758 Eurasian beaver

Cricetus cricetus (Linnaeus, 1758) Common hamster
Cricetulus migratorius (Pallas,1773) Grey hamster
Mesocricetus newtoni (Nehring, 1898) Romanian hamster

Myopus schisticolor (Lilljeborg, 1844) Wood lemming
Lemmus lemmus (Linnaeus, 1758) Norway lemming

Clethrionomys glareolus (Schreber, 1780) Bank vole
Clethrionomys rufocanus (Sundevall, 1846) Grey-sided vole
Clethrionomys rutilus (Pallas, 1779) Red vole
Dinaromys bogdanovi (Martino, 1922) Balkan snow vole
Arvicola sapidus Miller, 1908 Southern water vole
Arvicola terrestris (Linnaeus, 1758) Water vole

Ondatra zibethicus (Linnaeus, 1766) Muskrat

Microtus agrestis (Linnaeus, 1761) Field vole
Microtus arvalis (Pallas, 1778) Common vole
Microtus cabrerae Thomas, 1906 Cabrera’s vole
Microtus duodecimcostatus de Sélys-Longchamps, 1839 Mediterranean pine vole
Microtus felteni Malec & Storch, 1963 Balkan pine vole
Microtus gerbei (Gerbe, 1879) Pyrenean pine vole
Microtus guentheri (Danford & Alston, 1880) Guenther’s vole
Microtus lusitanicus (Gerbe, 1879) Lusitanian pine vole
Microtus multiplex (Fatio, 1905) Alpine pine vole
Microtus oeconomus (Pallas, 1776) Root vole
Microtus rossiaemeridionalis Ognev, 1924 Sibling vole
Microtus savii (de Sélys-Longchamps, 1838) Savi’s pine vole
Microtus subterraneus (de Sélys-Longchamps, 1836) Common pine vole
Microtus tatricus Kratochvíl, 1952 Tatra vole
Microtus thomasi (Barrett-Hamilton, 1903) Thomas’s vole
Chionomys nivalis (Martins, 1842) Snow vole

Meriones tristrami Thomas, 1892 Tristram’s jird

Spalax graecus Nehring, 1898 Balkan mole rat
Nannospalax leucodon (Nordmann, 1840) Lesser mole rat

Micromys minutus (Pallas, 1771) Harvest mouse
Apodemus agrarius (Pallas, 1771) Striped field mouse
Apodemus alpicola Heinrich 1952 Alpine mouse
Apodemus flavicollis (Melchior, 1834) Yellow-necked mouse
Apodemus mystacinus (Danford & Alston, 1877) Rock mouse
Apodemus sylvaticus (Linnaeus, 1758) Wood mouse
Apodemus uralensis (Pallas, 1811) Pygmy field mouse

Rattus norvegicus (Berkenhout, 1769) Brown rat
Rattus rattus (Linnaeus, 1758) Black rat; Ship rat

Mus domesticus Schwartz & Schwartz, 1943 Western house mouse
Mus macedonicus Petrov & Ruzic, 1983 Balkan short-tailed mouse
Mus musculus Linnaeus, 1758 Eastern house mouse
Mus spicilegus Petényi, 1882 Steppe mouse
Mus spretus Lataste 1883 Algerian mouse
Acomys minous Bate, 1906 Cretan spiny mouse

Glis glis (Linnaeus, 1766) Fat dormouse; Edible dormouse
Muscardinus avellanarius (Linnaeus, 1758) Common dormouse
Eliomys quercinus (Linnaeus, 1766) Garden dormouse
Dryomys nitedula (Pallas, 1778) Forest dormouse
Myomimus roachi (Bate, 1937) Mouse-tailed dormouse
Sicista betulina (Pallas, 1779) Northern birch mouse
Sicista subtilis (Pallas, 1773) Southern birch mouse

Hystrix cristata Linnaeus, 1758 Crested porcupine

Myocastor coypus (Molina, 1782) Coypu

Carnivora
Canis aureus Linnaeus, 1758 Golden jackal

Canis lupus Linnaeus, 1758 Wolf

Alopex lagopus (Linnaeus, 1758) Arctic fox
Vulpes vulpes (Linnaeus, 1758) Red fox

Nyctereutes procyonoides (Gray, 1834) Raccoon dog

Procyon lotor (Linnaeus, 1758) Raccoon

Mustela erminea Linnaeus, 1758 Stoat
Mustela eversmanii Lesson, 1827 Steppe polecat
Mustela lutreola (Linneus, 1761) European mink
Mustela nivalis Linnaeus, 1766 Weasel
Mustela putorius Linnaeus, 1758 Western polecat
Mustela vison Schreber, 1777 American mink
Vormela peregusna (Güldenstadt, 1770) Marbled polecat
Martes foina (Erxleben, 1777) Beech marten; Stone marten
Martes martes (Linnaeus, 1758) Pine marten
Gulo gulo (Linnaeus, 1758) Wolverine

Meles meles (Linnaeus, 1758) Badger

Lutra lutra (Linnaeus, 1758) Otter

Genetta genetta (Linnaeus, 1758) Common genet

Herpestes auropunctatus Hodgson, 1836 Small Indian mongoose
Herpestes ichneumon (Linnaeus, 1758) Egyptian mongoose

Felis silvestris Schreber, 1775 Wildcat
Lynx lynx (Linnaeus, 1758) Lynx
Lynx pardinus (Temminck, 1827) Iberian lynx, Pardel lynx

The dates next to the names are not the dates they were found in Europe, but the dates they were officially categorized and named. This list also apparently includes zoo escapes and feral animals. Okay, basically we have hares and rabbits, shrews, squirrels, hedgehogs, mice, voles, rats, and bigger critters like badgers to choose from. So, pick a candidate. What animal could have been referred to as a “marsh hare” in Holland in the late 15th and early 16th century? Me, I don’t see anything. Mongooses wouldn’t have been residing in Dutch marshes in the 15th century. Neither would porcupines or polecats. The only “marsh critters” are things like beavers, muskrats, coypu, and various sorts of water voles and mice, and we already know that muskrats and coypu weren’t there.

So, no mysterious 15th century Dutch critter. The only other thing I could imagine that it could possibly be would if the sounds made by the phrase “marsh hare” happened to mean something in Dutch, and if the rest of the quote were in Dutch. So, we’re back to the original quote. English, Dutch, French, Latin, what?

[samclem]

I now agree with DDG that there is no special creature called a marsh hare.

In the other thread on mad as a, I mentioned that I stopped at the library this morning. Read the OED. Interesting things in there.

The source for saying that Erasmus mentions a marsh hare is, I presume, Brewer (Dictionary of Phrase and Fable). Brewer . This is from a 1542 edition of Erasmus’s Aphorisms?, I also assume.

I offer, from the OED, the following: 1529(not Erasmus), As mad not as a march hare, but as a madde dogge. So let’s not get carried away that Erasmus invented the phrase.

Hey! He was Dutch, anyway! Doesn’t that tell you something?

[Axel_Wheeler]

If Erasmus was writing in Latin, and he approved of his works being traslated into English, then he probably wasn’t writing them in English, and so it is likely that “marsh hare” is due to a translator’s error (if his is indeed the earliest citation for marsh hare).

The Audubon artwork after that point suggests that Erasmus’ translator’s version “marsh hare” caught on and possibly led some people, including the Audubons, to believe in a species of possibly insane hares living in swamps. Sometime since then the term must have been applied to nutria.

But that means “marsh hare” still adds up to a red herring as far as March Hare is concerned.

Since LC used “March Hare” I would guess he used the original form, which just meant a hare in Spring.

And let’s not forget that it may have been well known long ago that our bunny-esque brethren are, how shall I put it, hyperfornicacious? So even if they didn’t have strange boxing mating rituals they might still have a reputation for Spring fever.

And, DDG, you are indeed not the only one to remember the story of Jimmy and the Nutria; I but a link to it in my original post to this thread.

Speaking of which, I think we have ‘solv-ed’ the puzzle, to wit:

Me:

If Erasmus’ original expression was “marsh hare”, could he have been referring to a nutria? …

Answer: No.

A key component of the answer to this question is whether nutria existed at that time and place.

Answer: They didn’t. Neither did muskrats or Audubon “marsh hares”.

If not a nutria, what was Erasmus referring to? (or “To what was Erasmus referring?” for the grammatically retentive.)

Probably march hares, meaning crazy horny Springtime hares, and either he or his translator screwed it up.

Case closed? If so, thanks DDG, Dex, & everybody!