70 HUNTING 



4. The Dwarf, or Eabhit Beagle is delicate in form 

 and aspect, but he has a good nose, and is 

 swift of foot. His height is only ten inches. 

 These beagles are universally followed on 

 foot. 



It is an inviolable rule when hunting with harriers 

 never to halloa. The reason for this is the timidity of 

 the hare, for if the hare is frightened by a halloa, he 

 will probably turn back into the mouth of the pack, 

 which is oblisfed to hunt him closelv on account of the 

 weakness of his scent. As he runs in a circle, he 

 will constantly return to his own "foil" or "form" 

 from which he was aroused, and thus, by mixing the 

 fresh with the stale scent, occasionally manage to 

 baffle his pursuers. But, as a rule, his life is doomed 

 directly he is aroused from his " foil." Such is the 

 timidity of the hare, that he has often been known 

 to drop dead of a broken heart before hounds have 

 run into him, and if hounds run into him alive, his 

 piteous squeal is a sound not to be forgotten. 



But it must be remembered that in some parts of 

 the country, notably in Norfolk and Suffolk, it is a 

 question of either hunting the hare, or no hunting at 

 all. The Suffolk foxhounds do not possess a single 

 covert, and when the Master, Mr Barthropp, at the 

 annual meeting of the hunt in April 1897, proposed 

 that they should celebrate the year by purchasing a 

 covert, or, at least, that something might be done in 

 hiring coverts, the chairman said that directly a 

 covert was to be let, it was taken for shooting, and 

 thus more rent was given for it. But the preponder- 

 ance of hare-hunting over fox-hunting in East Anglia 

 is not due so much to the unpopularity of foxes 



