BEAGLING. 105 



too much for the puppies, who every one of them courses the 

 rabbit for about a hundred yards in full cry. 



Luckily the interloper runs up hill along the fence, so the 

 delinquents are easily stopped by the whipper-in, who is lying- 

 back, and turned to the master's horn. It may here be remarked 

 that it is comparatively easy to stop beagles from rabbits in the 

 open. The pack the writer has in mind would always stop if 

 rated when a rabbit got up in an open field ; but in covert, where 

 one could not easily get at them, the case was very different, 

 and you might holloa yourself hoarse without producing much 

 effect. Master Bunny, however, only caused a momentary 

 diversion, and hounds, having struck the line in the bottom 

 corner of the fence, are once more chiming away merrily over 

 the heather in the direction of puss's original form. 



Will they catch her ? Well, if she is a leveret her bolt must 

 be nearly shot, but if she is an old hare — and she is big enough ! 

 — she will lead the pack a merry dance for another good half- 

 hour before giving in. So is the fight fought between poor puss 

 and her enemies the beagles. Sometimes a circle; sometimes a 

 straight bolt and then as a rule clapping till hounds are oyer 

 her, and getting up behind them, making her way home again ; 

 sometimes, though not often, making a long point and dying 

 some five miles from home. I once recollect a hare being found 

 close to the brook near which hounds were thrown off, as above 

 described, making a point of five miles over the heather, and 

 being eventually killed in the grounds of a well-known public 

 school situated in that district. This is, however, an exceptional 

 occurrence. 



Many and varied are the incidents which occur during the 

 chase of a hare. Often have we been hopelessly at fault on that 

 common, when, to our joy, we have beheld a hat held aloft on 

 some neighbouring hill. We know that hat well. It belongs to 

 the most arrant poacher in the neighbourhood ; he is the best 

 hand at seeing a hare sitting in the whole countryside, and he 

 knows a hunted hare when he sees her. We tried at one time 

 to reclaim him by paying him more for every hare he found for 

 us than he could get for one dead in the public-house. No use ! 

 the instinct was far too strong, and only a week or two after the 

 beginning of the compact *' the Long 'un," as he was called — 

 for he was a tall fellow — was caught setting a snare one Sunday 

 morning. 



When we were drawing for a hare he would walk with his 

 hands behind him, and, turning his head slowly from side to side, 

 would cover all ground within fifty yards as well as any setter. 



