They are largely unconcerned with goings on outside the Shire, frowning upon adventures or unexpected goings-on. Agrarians and simple craftsmen, Hobbits love eating above all other activities, except, perhaps, birthday parties.
Tolkien implies that the Hobbits are still among us; the source of the legends of the Faery (Leprechauns and such), and are endowed with a quickness of foot and a natural stealthiness that makes it almost impossible for us Big Folk to see them if they don't wish us to.
Hobbits are usually dark-haired, with thick curly hair on their feet, which are always bare. Stout-hearted and good-natured, they are by turns reminiscent of children or the lower classes in British society. In Middle-Earth, they also occupy a child race's position as Tolkien uses the Dúnedain of the North to protect them from the world, and they have largely escaped the eye of Sauron the Deciever. Through the course of the Lord of the Rings series, Tolkien takes the opportunity to mature the Hobbits, both as individuals in the characters of Merry and Pippin, and as an overall culture through a combination of contact with evil and active participation in the defense of Middle-Earth.
