136 THOUGHTS ON HUNTING 



in a good country : you are always certain of sport ; 

 and if you really love to see your hounds hunt, the 

 hare, when properly hunted, will show you more of it 

 than any other animal. 



You ask me, What is the right time to leave off 

 hare-hunting ? You should be guided in that by the 

 season : you should never hunt after March ; and, if 

 the season be forward, you should leave off sooner. 



Having now so considerably exceeded the plan 

 that I first proposed, you may wonder if I omit to say 

 anything of stag-hunting. Believe me, if I do, it will 

 not be for want of respect ; but because I have seen 

 very little of it. It is true, I hunted two winters at 

 Turin ; but their hunting, you know, is no more like 

 ours than is the hot meal we there stood up to eat, to 

 the English breakfast that we sit down to here. Were 

 I to describe their manner of hunting, their infinity of 

 dogs, their number of huntsmen, their relays of horses, 

 their great saddles, great bitts, and jack-boots — it 

 would be no more to our present purpose than the 

 description of a wild-boar chase in Germany, or the 

 hunting of jackals in Bengal — C'est une chasse magni- 

 fique, et voila tout. However, to give you an idea of 

 their huntsmen, I must tell you that one day the stag, 

 which is very unusual, broke cover, and left the forest ; 

 a circumstance which gave as much pleasure to me as 

 displeasure to all the rest : it put every thing into con- 

 fusion. I followed one of the huntsmen, thinking he 

 knew the country best ; but it was not long before we 

 were separated : the first ditch we came to stopped 

 him : I, eager to go on, hallooed out to him, "Allons, 



