BEAGLING i8i 



the hounds' heads are up, and, a fresh hare rising in 

 their very midst, away goes the whole pack, running 

 the stranger in view. Really well under control as 

 they are, no amount of rating or horn-blowing will 

 stop them unless someone can get round them. 

 Get round them ! Alas, anyone who has run with 

 beagles knows the impossibility of this until hounds 

 check I It is, moreover, quite likely that they will 

 run without checking for at least twenty minutes, and 

 then what prospect will there be of recovering the line 

 of the hunted hare ? Some slight chance indeed there 

 is, for a tired hare always stops, so that, if any vestige 

 of a line can be shown, hounds may work up to and 

 re-find her. Far oftener, however, all trace has 

 vanished, when they are brought back to the spot 

 where she was last seen. 



But let us describe a day's sport with beagles, 

 starting with the supposition that the master is suffi- 

 ciently energetic to be up and at it by six o'clock on 

 a beautiful October morning ; for not only are hares 

 scarce in the district over which he proposes to hunt, 

 the consequence being that he will have a better 

 chance of a find by getting on the trail, but he also 

 desires to give his young entry the lesson for which 

 running a hare's trail up to her form is so admirably 

 adapted. 



