122 HARE-HUNTING 



of beagles is unequalled. But we live in 

 fast times ; we have not the leisure even to 

 enjoy the time it takes for a pack of 10 or 

 1 1 -inch beagles to trace and puzzle out the 

 course of a hare with beautiful exactness till 

 their perseverance is at length rewarded. 

 We must find a hare at once, and kill her 

 in a few minutes, and, if she is lost, find 

 another without waste of time. This, how- 

 ever, is not the spirit of hare-hunting, but the 

 fever of our day. As a spectacle, as a 

 wonder, and an exhibition of the marvellous 

 senses and powers with which nature has 

 endowed both hare and hound, give me a 

 pack of beagles at work. The present 

 generation of followers of harriers are scarcely 

 aware of the perfection to which beagles can 

 be brought, and how undefeated even a lo-inch 



