A long-held view is that the hare will behave strangely and excitedly throughout its breeding season, which in Europe is the month of March (but which in fact extends over several months beyond March). This odd behaviour includes: boxing at other hares, jumping vertically for seemingly no reason and generally displaying abnormal behaviour.[3] An early verbal record of this animal's strange behaviour occurred in about 1500, in the poem Blowbol's Test[4] where the original poet said:
- Thanne [th]ey begyn to swere and to stare, And be as braynles as a Marshe hare
- (Then they begin to swerve and to stare, And be as brainless as a March hare)
One use of the phrase itself appears to have occurred in 1529 when Sir Thomas More wrote in his text, The supplycacyon of soulys made by syr Thomas More knyght councellour to our souerayn lorde the Kynge and chauncellour of hys Duchy of Lancaster. Agaynst the
