Writes Simon Carnell in Hare:
Due to their relatively exposed way of living hares have an unusually high number of predators, with high mortality rates among their young. Adult hares live on average no more than one year, compared to a potential lifespan of up to twelve years. There is an epigram by Ausonius in which a hare hunted to the seashore by dogs and men cries out, before being eaten by a dog-fish, that "all rape of land and sea is on me/ even of the heavens, if there is a dog-star." An ironic conclusion, since in the southern night sky there is both a "dog-star" and a "lepus" constellation at the foot of the hunter Orian.
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