THE PURSUIT OF THE HARE 219 



meuses as the hunted one, so that you may change with- 

 out knowing it; and a very fruitful source of changing is 

 foot-people, who will holloa every hare they see. 1 1 

 is not always easy to distinguish a hunted hare from 

 a fresh one. When the ground is wet and heavy, a 

 hare which has been on foot for some time naturally 

 gets dirty and dark-coloured, and under these circum- 

 stances there should not be much difficulty in recog- 

 nising the hunted animal ; but when the ground is 

 dry, colour is no help, and the only thing to look for 

 is whether the hare carries . her hind-quarters higher 

 than usual — whether she is what is technically termed 

 ' high on her legs.' A hare after being hunted for some 

 time will present this appearance, while a fresh one 

 will be seen to run with a more level back. One 

 more piece of advice must be given, and that is, 

 always to conduct hare-hunting with as little noise as 

 possible. A noisy huntsman soon makes wild hounds, 

 and it is very much easier to get hounds' heads up 

 than to steady them down again. 



Quietness is particularly essential at the begin- 

 ning of a run. What appears to be a flashy, bad 

 scent often turns out to be a very useful one when 

 hounds have got quietly settled down to it, but this 

 they v;ill never do if hurried along at first. Holloas 

 there must be, of course ; and very useful they are at 



