HARRIERS AND BEAGLES 275 



small ones. Writing from memory, we would say that 

 about twenty inches was the average, and very quickly 

 the pack became wonderfully even. 



Their owner would draft a hound that went too 

 fast for the others, and would not keep one which 

 lagged behind on a good scenting day, and in point 

 of fact he drafted everything which was not up to 

 the mark. Just at first he was obliged to put on 

 hounds he did not like on account of making up his 

 number, but it happened that just then the market 

 was flooded with harriers, and as Mr. Greenwell made 

 several tours of inspection to other countries he was 

 not long in finding what he wanted. The result of 

 all this was that after a few months he was showing the 

 very best sport we ever saw with harriers, though he 

 killed nothing like so great a number of hares as 

 some packs we have since seen. Why he did not kill 

 four, five, or six hares a day, as do some of the present- 

 day packs, is easily explained. In the first place, hares 

 were scarce in much of his country ; in the second 

 place, nine out of ten of those he hunted were moor- 

 edge hares of extraordinary stoutness ; and in the third 

 place, he never lifted his hounds to a holloa whilst 

 they had a vestige of the line. When one adds to 

 this that he had a strong objection to killing more 

 than two hares a day, that he would stop his hounds 

 if he knew they were running a leveret, or what he 

 took to be a doe in the spring of the year, it will be 

 readily understood that his number of kills was insig- 

 nificant compared with the scores of some other packs. 

 On no account would he allow a hare to be mobbed 

 either, but in his home country there was no chance of 

 such a thing occurring, as the field was always small, 

 there was no local force of pedestrians, and his sup- 



