SMALL GAME HUNTING WITH DOGS 



hare, size being a very important factor, for I have seen big 

 beagles, in the same kind of lantana scrub, lie down utterly 

 done, unable to walk, after less than half the work gone 

 through by my two little bitches that day. I killed 71 

 hares over these two before Patch pegged out to a dose of 

 distemper. Vic eventually had to be put away, through 

 old age and debility, after being in at the death of 127 

 hares. I have kept many dogs since, but none better than 

 those two. The foregoing runs are very typical of all 

 such hunting, so that any more accounts might tend to 

 monotony. To the end of 1904 I have bagged 250 hares, 

 mostly in and about the estate I live on, but this bag has 

 extended over ten years, as I have not kept dogs con- 

 tinuously during that time, being often months or a year 

 without them. All the same, when you consider that for 

 every hare shot my dogs have run at least three others at 

 which I do not get shots, not to mention misses, my total 

 represents a very considerable amount of hard work for 

 both man and dogs. 



Let me see, now, what else my diary can furnish in the 

 way of other " hunts " of sorts. Looking back a good 

 many years I find an account of the death of a porcupine, 

 and, as they are not common in this part of the valley, it 

 stands out as an incident. 



My dogs were ranging through a block of lantana 

 scrub bordering a tea field and I was waiting outside, in 

 the tea, ready for anything that might be turned out. A 

 whimper from Driver, soon followed by unmistakable 

 " tongue," quickly calls the other dogs to him, and one 

 by one I heard Ruby's grand note, old Warrior's " roar," 

 Gaylass's shrill tongue, and the frantic yaps of the little 

 terrier Joe, not to mention the clamour of two or three other 

 nondescripts I at that time possessed, gradually blending 



35 



