The Chase of the Hare 209 



watch the hounds unravel her hne, see them outgeneralled here 

 and fooled there, as the artful game intended they should be — 

 is, to the writer's mind, one of the most fascinating games that 

 can possibly be seen in any form of the chase against any 

 animal that lives. 



Game and hound meet on fair and equal terms, for in the 

 old school practice, no one thinks of giving away the secrets 

 of puss to the hounds, but leaves them quite to themselves as 

 long as they will hunt. Lifting hounds to a view may be jus- 

 tified towards the end of a long day with foot beagles or foot 

 harriers. 



To hft hounds on, and keep racing a hare until overtaken 

 by speed, seems to the writer to be neither hunting nor cours- 

 ing, but a cross-bred or mongrel sport between the two. 



Of course, with the old school there is not much chance of 

 a gallop of any length, for the constant circhng and doubling 

 of the hare often brings the game to an end in the same field 

 where it began; so that a man on a stout cob that can go a 

 good pace, is able to see much more of the game than the 

 best mounted rider to foxhounds. The ^viiter by no means 

 wishes to impeach from the list of true sportsmen all hare 

 hunters of the riding class. Their salvation comes not from 

 the methods they pursue so much as the results. 



Fast harriers — like fast foxhounds after fox — although they 

 often have a kill in fifteen or twenty minutes, lose so many 

 hares for the very reason they are so fast, that they cannot 

 be called butchers, as some are inclined to say they are. Never- 

 theless, racing a hare to death is not hunting. The writer 

 beheves too much of the spirit of the chase is sacrificed in these 

 days to pace. 



The object of the chase in these latter days is not to kill 

 hares and foxes so much as it is to preserve the time honoured 

 customs and conditions of the chase as they have been handed 

 down to us from our forefathers. Its most laudable object is 



