Notes at Brighton. 143 



sea, by this time nothing more than a suspicion, and the 

 ships, houses, and offing, a grateful panorama behind. You 

 then descend until you regain the old landmarks, only by 

 an unexpected and rapid change of front, to find yourself 

 erewhile once more advancing farther upward and onward 

 than before. Very little fencing or leaping of any kind is 

 called for in this description of hare-hunting ; you may, of 

 course, make an opportunity of taking a flying leap if you 

 choose, but, as a rule, if you know how to ride neatly up 

 and down steep ascents, and at high speed if necessary, you 

 need not be afraid of following harriers. 



Somehow, there are generally a few pedestrians who 

 always contrive to be not far from the hunt. As you wait 

 for a draw on the verge of field and enclosure, and the 

 horses take breath, those gentlemen on foot soon come 

 toiling bravely up, having by knowledge of short cuts and 

 the probabilities of the chase, kept the hounds in constant 

 sight. At this work it is with men as with horses the best 

 stayer does the trick. The race is not by any means to the 

 swift only. 



On these far-reaching Sussex Downs we have no reason to 

 complain of too many hares. An abundance of them com- 

 plicates the scent, and this is almost as bad as no game at 

 all. Happily, we are in that proverbially desirable con- 

 dition of having neither poverty nor riches. Our huntsman 

 views the killing of the first hare to-day with intense satis- 

 faction, not so much because she baffled the pursuit for 

 more than an hour, as because she makes up the sixteenth 

 brace this season. It must not, however, be supposed that 

 hare-hunting is always so peaceful and slow, as it must be 

 held to be in the .main, by comparison with other forms of 

 field sport. There was not long ago a most memorable run 

 almost straight ahead, from near Shoreham to Devil's Dyke, 



