PUBLIC COURSING. 283 



may often be driven out of turnips, clover, or small coverts, by a 

 line of beaters driving them towards tbe dogs, which are held at a 

 particular spot, and kept as much as possible out of sight. The 

 dipper uses the same kind of slips as are adopted in public 

 coursing, and slips his dogs in the same way, adapting the length 

 of the slip allowed to the nature of the ground. It is a very bad 

 plan to let the greyhounds run loose while the hare is looked for, 

 as the two rarely start on even terms, and consequently they can- 

 not be compared together. Unless, therefore, coursing is pursued 

 solely to get the hare, slips are indispensable. 



When private coursing is conducted in the above way, it is 

 quite as good a sport as the public kind ; but too often it degener- 

 ates into a series of mobbings of the hare, followed by perpetual 

 squabblings of the owners of the dogs engaged, as to their respect- 

 ive merits or demerits. 



PUBLIC COURSING. 



This amusement has now become very general since the last 

 alteration of the game laws, which permitted any person to course 

 a hare without a certificate. It differs from private coursing, 

 firstly, in requiring rather a difierent greyhound, and, secondh/, in 

 being governed strictly by rules which settle all the preliminaries. 



The public grcijhoiDid, to be successful, must be a dog which 

 can beat his competitors in the stake in which he is engaged, even 



