CHAPTER I 



SHOOTING 



Naturally, in modern times and with modern 

 appliances, the most common method of taking hares 

 has been by shooting. By this means nineteen- 

 twentieths of the hares annually realised in Great 

 Britain are killed. The number of those taken by 

 other means, exclusive of poaching, is small. In the 

 great Waterloo Coursing Meeting itself under one 

 hundred hares are killed, and the total number killed 

 at all the coursing meetings of the kingdom would 

 not reach the total destroyed only a few years ago on 

 some of our great game-preserving manors. A few 

 years ago, I may well say, for since the Ground Game 

 Act of 1880 came into existence, not only have men 

 ceased to make big bags of hares, ^ but the animal 

 itself has on many thousands of acres become abso- 

 lutely extinct. Leaving out all questions of sport, it 



• Except in a few favoured districts. At Cheveley Park, 

 Newmarket, for example, 2,442 hares were gathered in the season 

 of 1894-95. — Ed. 



