COURSING. 781 



ing questions were submitted to a gentleman whose grey- 

 hounds are known to be as swift as any in the kingdom r 

 Whether the speed of a greyhound is equal to that of a first- 

 rate race-horse for the distance of a mile, or for a greater or 

 lesser distance 1 and whether the speed of any hare (suppos- 

 ing the dog and hare to be started without the law usually 

 allowed to a hare in coursing) is equal to that of the grey- 

 hound ; and to what distance, within that of a mile, the hare 

 could exert that superiority of speed, supposing the hare to 

 be the swiftest animal of the two '? His opinion was, that 

 upon a flat a first-rate horse would be superior to the grey- 

 hound ; but in a hilly country, as in Wiltshire, a good grey- 

 hound would have the advantage : on the second point, tliat 

 although he had seen many hares go away from greyhounds, 

 laid close in with them, without a turn, yet he believes a 

 capital greyhound (so laid in) would not sufier a hare to run 

 from him without turning her. An incident, however, oc- 

 curred in December, 1800, which brought the speed of the 

 greyhound and race-horse in competition. A match was to 

 have been run over Doncaster course for one hundred guineas, 

 but one of the horses having been drawn, a mare started 

 alone to make good the bet, and after having gone the dis- 

 tance of about a mile, a greyhound bitch started from the 

 side of the course, and ran her other three miles, keeping 

 head to head, which produced a singular race ; and when 

 they arrived at the distance-post, five to four was bet on the 

 greyhound ; when they came to the stand it was even betting. 

 The mare won by about a head. 



In February, 1800, a brace of greyhounds in Lincolnshire 

 ran a hare a distance, measuring straight from her seat to 

 where killed, upwards of four miles in twelve minutes ; 

 during the course there was a great number of turns, which 

 very considerably increased the space gone over ; the hare 



