CHIEFLY HISTORICAL 17 



iu' hound with the quick and nimble beagle — preferably 

 ^ the North-country beagle — and those who swear by 

 foxhound blood, and will have it for hare-hunting, 

 either pure, as in the case of the dwarf foxhound, or 

 almost pure and but lightly crossed with the original 

 harrier stock. These two schools of hare-hunters 

 pursue and continue to pursue their quarry in widely 

 different ways ; the former content to hunt out, 

 steadily but surely, the mazes and windings of the 

 hare's natural flight ; the later pushing their quarry 

 so hard that she has no leisure and is too hard pressed 

 to display her usual antics, and is burst up in a third 

 or half of the time usually occupied by harriers of pure 

 blood. Each school has its ardent supporters. Per- 

 sonally, I am one of those who like to see the hare 

 hunted in the old-fashioned manner ; and without the 

 least wishing to return to the days of the seventeenth 

 and early part of the eighteenth century, when followers 

 of the old lumbering Southern hound spent half a 

 dozen hours or more in running down their hare, I 

 prefer a chase of an hour or more, with plenty of hound 

 music — and your true harrier has a most beautiful and 

 melodious voice — to a burst of twenty minutes, in which 

 the quarry is completely overmastered and never has the 

 faintest chance, which, in my opinion, she should have, of 

 making her escape. Although man}^ books have been 

 written on hunting, it is astonishing how little learning 

 is to be gathered concerning the chase of the hare. 

 Somervile and Beckford to this hour remain almost 

 our only masterpieces and authorities on this subject. 

 " An Essay on Hunting," by a Country Squire, pub- 

 lished in 1733, contains some useful information ; and 

 Stonehenge's "British Sports," the Badminton Library 

 volume on Hunting, and an article in the " Encyclo- 

 paedia of Sport," also deal shortly with the subject. If 



B 



