HARRIERS NOT GO TOO FAST 119 



his running, the eagerness of the pursuit, and the 

 noise that generally accompanies it, all contribute to 

 spoil a harrier. 



I hope you agree with me, that it is a fault in a 

 pack of harriers to go too fast ; for a hare is a little 

 timorous animal, which we cannot help feeling some 

 compassion for at the very time when we are pursuing 

 her destruction : we should give scope to all her little 

 tricks, nor kill her foully, and over-matched. 1 Instinct 

 instructs her to make a good defence, when not 

 unfairly treated ; and I will venture to say, that, as far 

 as her own safety is concerned, she has more cunning 

 than the fox, and makes many shifts to save her life 

 far beyond all his artifice. Without doubt, you have 

 often heard of hares, who, from the miraculous escapes 

 they have made, have been thought witches ; but, I 

 believe, you never heard of a fox that had cunning 

 enough to be thought a wizzard. 



They who like to rise early, have amusement in 

 seeing the hare trailed to her form. It is of great 

 service to hounds : it also shows their goodness to 

 the huntsman more than any other hunting, as it 

 discovers to him those who have the most tender 

 noses. But I confess I seldom judged it worth while 

 to leave my bed a moment sooner on that account. I 



1 The critic terms this, "a mode of destruction somewhat beyond 

 brutal" (vide Monthly Review). I shall not pretend to justify that 

 conventional cruelty, which seems so universally to prevail — neither 

 will I ask the gentleman, who is so severe on me, why he feeds the 

 lamb, and afterwards cuts his throat ; I mean only to consider cruelty 

 under the narrow limits which concern hunting — if it may be defined to 

 be, a pleasure which results from giving pain ; then, certainly, a sports- 

 man is much less cruel than he is thought. 



