96 HUNTING. 



to be working in the direction of making harriers rather diflfcrent 

 animals from many of those with which our forefathers used 

 to pursue the hare. Everyone wants to go fast nowadays, and 

 the master of harriers, as well as the M.F.H., finds that if he 

 is to please the majority of his supporters, he must have a quick 

 pack of hounds which can get out of the way of horses and 

 show a gallop when they have a scent to do it with ; so that, 

 between the modern demands of the hunting-field and the 

 influence of the Peterborough show ring, the harrier bids fa'r 

 to become very like the foxhound in make and shape ; and 

 providing that his size is kept down to something like twenty 

 inches for the largest hounds, this is certainly the highest 

 canine ideal, so far as bodily formation goes, that can be 

 arrived at. The old-fashioned harrier was often sadly deficient 

 in his understandings ; loins and quarters he often had of the 

 best, but legs and feet left much to be desired, and shoulders 

 were often not satisfactory ; his nose was good, it is true, but 

 of what avail is the best nose if the animal's physical powers 

 are so deficient that he cannot do a real good day's hard work 

 with comfort to himself and those who have to ride home with 

 him? There certainly seems to be no reason why the fine 

 scenting powers and hereditary instinct of the harrier should not 

 be preserved, and a more shapely animal produced than has 

 often been the case in the past. We now appear to be on the 

 high road to such a consummation, and the next few years will 

 probably prove eventful in the history of harrier breeding. 



Some people talk as if it were a heresy and a poisonous 

 thing to introduce foxhound blood into harrier breeding, but 

 let us for a moment consider what sort of hound it is that we 

 want to pursue the hare with. Delicacy of nose, and that 

 hereditary instinct which leads him to cast sideways and back 

 at a check instead of flinging forward, are necessary qualifica- 

 tions of the first importance ; so that the pure-bred foxhound, 

 not possessing the latter of these, is not, as has been before 

 stated in this work, the exact article we require, although, if he 

 were kept for several generations to the pursuit of the hare, 1 



