NOVEMBER. 



HARE HUNTING ON THE 

 BRIGHTON DOWNS. 



BY H. H. S. PEARSE. 



FOR full enjoyment of sport, as followers of the Brighton 

 Harriers delight to describe it, one need be well mounted on a 

 quick and clever horse that can gallop up hill or down, have 

 steady nerves, a firm seat, good hands, and a stout heart. You 

 may perhaps have seen among the horsemen and horsewomen 

 riding out of Brighton towards a fixture on the hills, some who 

 did not seem to be endowed with all these qualifications ; but 

 they would be the last to admit that it was possible for anybody 

 to get on creditably with less. Their vivid descriptions of the 

 precipices down which they ride at headlong speed are enough 

 to take a listener's breath away, if he does not happen to 

 have learned by personal observation how small, in proportion 

 to the people who hunt and talk about it afterwards, is the 

 number of those who greatly dare. Pace is, without doubt, a 

 characteristic of hunting on open downs where hares are stout, 

 and there are neither fences, nor furrows, nor tangled undergrowth 

 of bracken, brambles, and sedge, to prevent hounds from viewing 

 their game frequently. Sport under these conditions differs very 



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