THE GREYHOUND 85 



winner ; but in coursing it is not the hound first there, but the one 

 that has done most towards accomplishing the death of the hare, 

 or put her to the greatest straits to escape, that is awarded the 

 palm. Be it here understood that the object of the courser and 

 the object of the dogs differ materially. The dogs' object is the 

 death of the hare ; the courser's object is to test the relative speed, 

 working abilities, and endurance of the competitors, as shown in 

 their endeavours to accomplish their object : and the possession 

 of the hare is of little consequence, except to the pothunter or 

 currant jelly devotee, who is quite out of the pale of genuine 

 coursing society. 



Two dogs only are slipped at a hare and this has always been 

 the honourable practice in this country. Even the Greek courser 

 Arrian recognises this, saying : " Whoever courses with Greyhounds 

 should neither slip them near the hare, nor more than a brace at 

 a time " ; and in Turberville's " Observations on Coursing " we 

 find the maxim : " If the Greyhounds be but yonge or slow, you 

 may course with a lease at one hare, but that is seldom seen, 

 and a brase of dogges is ynow for such a poore beaste." 



The hare being found, or so-ho'd, and given law a fair start 

 of eighty or a hundred yards the dogs are slipped. In the run 

 up, as in after stretches following a turn, the relative speed of the 

 dogs is seen ; but the hare, being pressed, will jerk, turn, and wind 

 in the most nimble manner, testing the dog's smartness in working, 

 suppleness, and agility in making quick turns, and "it is a gallant 

 sport to see how the hare will turn and wind to save herself out 

 of the dogge's mouth, so that, sometimes, when you think that your 

 Greyhound doth, as it were, gape to take her, she will turn and 

 cast them a good way behinde her, and so save herself by turning, 

 wrenching, and winding." It is by the practice of these clever wiles 

 and shifts that the hare endeavours to reach her covert, and, in 

 closely following her scut, and o'ermastering her in her own devices, 

 that a Greyhound displays the mastery of this branch of his business, 

 in which particular a slower dog will often excel an opponent that 

 has the foot of him in the stretches ; but, with this working power, 

 a facility in making short turns, speed must be combined, or it 

 stands to reason points could not be made, except on a comparatively 

 weak hare. It is, therefore, important that the conformation of 

 the dog should be such as to combine speed with a strength and 

 suppleness that will, as far as possible, enable him to control and 

 guide the velocity with which he is moving, as his quick eye sees 

 the game swerve or turn to one side or another. 



As the death of the hare, when it is a kill of merit that is, 

 when accomplished by superior speed and cleverness, and not by 

 the accident of the foremost dog turning the hare, as it were, into 

 the killer's mouth is a consideration in reckoning up the total of 



