546 



MODERN FARRIER. 



also to the various circumstances that are continually- 

 happening from change of weather and difference of 

 ground. He will also be mindful of the distance 

 which the hare keeps before the hounds, and of her 

 former doubles, and he will remark what point she 

 makes to. All these observations will be of use, 

 should a long fault make his assistance necessary ; 

 and if the hare have headed back, he will carefully 

 observe whetlier she met any thing in her course to 

 turn her, or turned of her own accord. When he 

 casts his hounds, let him begin by making a small 

 circle; if that will not do, then let him try a larger; 

 he afterwards may be at liberty to persevere in any 

 cast he may judge most likely. As a hare generally 

 revisits her old haunts, and returns to the place 

 where she was first found, if the scent be quite 

 gone, and the hounds can no longer hunt, that is as 

 likely a cast as any to recover her. Let him re- 

 member this in all his casts, that the hounds are not 

 to follow his horse's heels, nor are they to carry 

 their heads high, and noses in the air. At these 

 times they must try for the scent, or they will never 

 find it ; and he is either to make his cast slow or 

 quick, as he perceives his hounds try, and as the 

 scent is either good or bad. 



Let the huntsman prevent the hounds as much as 

 he can from chopping hares. A\'hen hounds are 

 used to it, a hare must be very wild, or very nimble, 

 to escape them. In a furzy country, hounds are apt 

 to chop hares ; for it is the nature of those animals 

 either to leap up before the hounds come near them, 

 and steal away, as it is called ; or else to lie close, 

 till they put their very noses upon them. Hedges 

 also are very dangerous ; if the huntsman beat the 

 hedge himself, which is the usual practice, the 

 hounds are always upon the watch, and a hare must 

 have good luck to escape them all. The best way 

 to prevent it, is to have the hedge well beaten at 

 some distance before the hounds. 



