192 FI UN TING THE HARE 



during the chase. It was seldom that the hounds 

 actually caught a hare themselves ; the object was to 

 keep the ({uarry on the move, so that she might 

 finally run into some of the toils whi(^h the huntsman 

 had employed his woodcraft to place in the most 

 likely spots. \ real straight hare must have been a 

 sad nuisance to these old-world sportsmen. 



To come down to comparatively our own times, 

 there is still a vast difference in the style in which the 

 hare was pursued not so very long ago and that which 

 is in vogue to-day. In the last generation, when the 

 guns in a country parish could be counted on the 

 fingers of one hand, and wiring was an art in its 

 infancy ; when game preserving, in the modern sense, 

 was not, hares lived under rather different circum- 

 stances from those of our day. Hares could be 

 found almost anywhere on likely ground ; they were 

 thinly scattered about, and there were few places 

 where they existed in large numbers. Now all this 

 is altered ; where hares are highly preserved there are 

 so many of them that hunting is impossible, and in 

 unpreserved districts almost everyone carries a gun. 

 A hare is pursued to the death as soon as heard of, 

 and those which may escape the gun are most likely 

 to end their career in the wire of the poaching 

 labourer, who can set his snares with little danger of 



