82 Modern Dogs. 



when sometimes they have a turn with the fox, and 

 perhaps oftener a chase with the " carted deer." 

 The latter almost a necessity, because a mistaken 

 and ill-judged legislation has caused hares to become 

 very scarce in some districts, where a few years ago 

 they were plentiful. 



The harrier is quite as old a hound as any other. 

 Caius calls him Leverarius, and the Book of St. 

 Albans mentions the hare in the same list as a beast 

 of chase as the fox, the deer, and the wild boar. Still, 

 perhaps, pretty much as with most harriers to day, 

 those of Dame Berners' time would be as much at 

 home with the timorous hare as with the cunning 

 fox or the fleeter red deer. Some modern writers 

 have gone so far as to say that such a thing as a 

 true harrier, one without any dash of foxhound 

 blood in him, is not to be found. Beckford wrote 

 of the harrier as a cross-bred hound, and his 

 own were bred between the large slow hunting 

 southern hound and the beagle. They were fast 

 enough, had all the alacrity desirable, and would 

 hunt the coldest scent. These attributes, added to 

 their plodding perseverance, gave them a distinctive 

 character, which, as already hinted, has well nigh 

 departed. Still, all the harriers of sixty or seventy 

 years ago were not so slow and careful as Beckford's 

 undoubtedly were, for there were complaints that in 



