80 THE TRUE HARRIER. 



of the Beagle, as elsewhere described by himself, and as follows, by Taplin, in his 

 Sportsman s Cabinet " The North Country Beagle or Harrier, as it is now almost 

 universally called, is incredibly nimble, alert and vigorous, pursuing his business 

 with the most wonderful avidity in every endeavour to find : when the game is on 

 foot, he carries on the scent with the most impetuous eagerness, and gives the hare 

 little or no time to breathe, double or squat, and if hares are plenty, and the scent 

 lies high, a pack of this description will frequently pick up a leash, or two brace 

 before dinner : but this is altogether unseasonable, the sport is by much too short 

 and violent." He had before said 4 the Southern or Old English Hound is most 

 undoubtedly the original real-bred Harrier of this Country.' 



It would appear by these citations, ancient and modern, that, our Writers have 

 been hitherto unable to get beyond the mere term Harrier ; and that they can in- 

 form us no otherwise, what a Harrier is, than a Beagle or any kind of Hound, the 

 light Fox-hound excepted, which will hunt a hare. Now to be allowed the term, 

 this is a most indiscriminate definition. All hounds indeed, will hunt a sweet scent, 

 the hare particularly ; but the modern Harrier is not a Beagle, nor is the Southern- 

 hound, merely as such, a Harrier. Doubtless any Sportsman, and the practice is 

 common, may use beagles or any hounds whatever to hunt hares ; but although 

 according to the above authorities, nobody seems apprized of it, and we cannot 

 tell at what period, by whom, or where, the harrier Variety was established, 

 certain it is there is such Variety, and our own eyes have witnessed it, nearly as 

 long as they have witnessed any other object. The true harrier is a reduced size 

 of the old Hound, probably in the first instance, from a cross with the Beagle : 

 the plate we give herewith and the portraits of the Harrier, given by Mr. Daniel 

 and others, will best exemplify this. 



We have opportunely before us at this moment, an advertisement in the County 

 Chronicle, for a Pack of Harriers " deeply crossed with the Southern Hound, 

 from nineteen to twenty inches high, the blue mottled sort not being objected to." 

 Now this advertisement of a modern Sportsman, partakes both of the certainty and 

 the uncertainty of which we have been speaking. Of certainty, as to the existence 

 of an established Variety called the harrier, and a sort of uncertainty, as of a 

 necessity for a farther cross. Then of the Southern hound, which time seems to 

 have worn to vox et preterea nihil, to a mere name We had heard at various 

 periods within memory, of hounds as well as horses being imported from the 

 Levant, from Greece and the Islands of the Archipelago ; but upon later enquiry, 

 we cannot learn by whom, nor indeed any ascertainment of such fact; and must 

 be content to receive the old vague denomination Southern Hound as the old 

 English species, namely the largest sized hound, long in body, deep chested, stout 

 boned, large and heavy in the head, with long sweeping ears and the most exquisite 

 nose ; greedy of blood, slow, but of lasting perseverance to death. This is the 

 pure high bred hound which our sportsmen have possessed immemorially ; the 



