The villagers of Mewar region of Rajasthan state believe that hare seldom drinks water because it always feeds on green fodder. I too have a long experience of the jungles of Mewar along with its denizens and scores of time I have sat over the water holes all through the night.

I had once witnessed a hare sitting in water but I had never seen it drinking water until my visit to Pali in 1996.

Major part of Pali district of Rajasthan comprises of semi arid zone. On July 4, 1996 we took up our position in a hide near a water hole in the jungles of Ghanerao, a township of Pali district. At 8.18 PM a hare approached the water hole carelessly and started lapping water. The light was dim.

We took a shot of it with a video camera. To my surprise it remained over the water for nineteen minutes. What was more surprising about its behavior was that it wouldn’t cast its eye around as a lookout for predators. This jungle harbors leopards and several other small carnivores that are regular visitors to this hole.

In the same jungle on four consecutive nights I sat on four different water holes. On all the four water holes hares turned up and displayed the same behavior as that of the first hare. On all these four water holes they came between 8.45 PM to 9 PM. They remained at the water hole for 19, 24, 13 and 10 minutes respectively.

Such careless long stays over water holes during a summer month by such small defenseless mammals, with surrounding jungles full of predators, is most surprising.