122 Recollections of the Vine Hunt. 



the great objects are to keep as close to your 

 game, and to get into as few difficulties as possible ; 

 because, on ordinary scenting days at least, a good 

 pack of foxhounds are not more than a match 

 for a good fox, and also because a good fox seldom 

 stops till he is beaten ; so that, if you once get far 

 behind him, you have little chance of improving your 

 position. But the harrier is generally more than a 

 match in power for the strongest hare ; and the hare 

 is sure to stop if she has time to do so ; and, more- 

 over, the very charm of hare-hunting consists in 

 working through difficulties, and enjoying an alterna- 

 tion of quick running and slow hunting. Therefore, 

 it is not desirable to be always near your game. In- 

 deed, unless she has time enough, in the course of the 

 run, to make her doubles, and exercise her curious 

 devices for baffling the hounds, though you may be 

 pursuing a hare, you will see very little of hare- 

 hunting : a pack of dwarf foxhounds racing into a 

 hare in twenty minutes, and never three minutes 

 behind her, is, in my opinion, no more like hare- 

 hunting than it is like foxhunting. 



And consequently the qualifications for hunting the 

 two sorts of hounds are very different. The hunts- 

 man of harriers requires only the more ordinary 

 qualities of judgment and patience : the huntsman of 

 foxhounds must have, in addition to these, not only 

 fine and bold horsemanship, but also great quickness 

 of decision, and that rare and indescribable thing 

 called ' talent' The latter must be continually assist- 

 ing his hounds, taking into consideration various 

 contingencies and distant points ; and he has never a 

 minute to spare in doing all this. The former has 



