Moth Caterpillars. by Jeffrey S. Pippen | Back to Jeff's Butterfly Page | Back to Jeff's Misc. Thanks to many folks who have helped me ID some of the creatures on this page, including Anurag Agrawal, John & Jane Balaban, Cheri Cameron, Pat Coin, Steve Hall, Sean Hitch, Josh Rose, and Steve & Dean.
Mad as a March hare. To be as mad as a March hare is an English idiomatic phrase derived from the observed antics, said to occur only in the March breeding season of the Hare, genus Lepus.
The most famous Mad Hatter, of course, is the one from the Mad Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland, the partner of the March Hare. Both mad, of course. But Lewis Carroll did not invent the phrase, although he did create the character. The phrases mad as a hatter and mad as a March hare were common at the time Lewis Carroll wrote (1865 was the first publication date of Alice). The phrase had been in common use in 1837, almost 30 years earlier.