BEAGLING 233 



off, not so much by scarcity of hares, due to the passing of the 

 Ground Game Act of 1880, as to the close preservation of game that 

 preceded the Act and rendered its passing imperative in the inter- 

 ests of tenant-occupiers, the sight of a greyhound so frightening the 

 game-preserver that coursing meetings, at one time so popular 

 almost all over the country, were suppressed one after another in 

 rapid succession, not many remaining in 1880. Thus a very ancient 

 sport passed into relative oblivion, and is only kept from complete 

 obliteration by the national annual meeting at Aintree and the 

 aspirations evoked by the Waterloo Cup. Nevertheless, the British 

 greyhound (Cants Grains) accords with the quaint description given 

 in a work printed in 1496, by Wynkyn de Worde (the Book of St. 

 A Ibans) , as to what a greyhound should be 



Headed lyke a snake, 

 Neckyed lyke a drake, 

 Fottyed lyke a catte, 

 Taylled lyke a ratte. 

 Syded lyke a breme, 

 And chyned lyke a beme. 



Hares are still hunted by harriers or beagles. This, popularly 

 called beagling, is generally regarded as a prelude to foxhunting, 

 inasmuch as when a person has been entered to beagles and has 

 learnt to study hound work, only his or her purse debars riding to 

 foxhounds. Every follower of the little hounds is, therefore, a 

 foxhunter in posse and if at times the line of a fox tempts them 

 astray, they will, especially towards the end of season, compen- 

 sate by driving out-lying foxes back to their coverts and teaching 

 them to stay there. 



BEAGLING, like foxhunting, is antagonistic to the over-preserva- 

 tion of ground game, and being in accord with national instinct 

 in respect of sport being accessible to all chase aspirants, commends 

 itself to a large number of persons with moderate means, and in 

 districts where there is practically nothing to take the community 

 out of the humdrum of ordinary occupation, hare-hunting has 

 enervating and good fellowship influence on the national life. Even 

 meets of harriers, foxhounds, and (it must be conceded) stag- 

 hounds, have much to commend them in these respects, and in 

 the chase of wild animals there is nothing but what appeals to 

 man's nature as humane. 



RABBIT-COURSING is quite another thing from beagling and fox- 

 hunting. The rabbits are turned down on ground to which they 

 are strangers, and are simply driven through fear of shouting men 

 and howling dogs to make a run (of a sort) for life without so much 

 as a chance of escape. Sport of this nature only appeals to pot- 

 hunters degraded and vicious sportsmen, 



