vili EDITOR'S PREFACE 



environs of our growing towns. We no longer expect 

 to see wild hares at large in the Regent's Park, where 

 once they were so abundant that the Zoological Society 

 had to erect a hare-proof fence round its Gardens, to 

 prevent the park hares breaking through and eating 

 the flowers. That would have been about the time 

 when Queen Victoria came to the throne ; and less 

 than a century earlier snipe were seen in Conduit 

 Street and wildfowl in Pimlico, while the bark of the 

 fox sounded on moonlight nights from the fastnesses 

 of Kensington Gardens. Those times are gone, and 

 with them the wild creatures have in great measure 

 passed. Even so, however, Mr. Bryden is hopeful, 

 and his prophetic eye sees future generations of his 

 hare-hunting countrymen, after the smoke from our 

 manufacturing centres has stifled the last British hare, 

 repairing, with the aid of some as yet undreamt 

 means of rapid travel, for week-end hunts to Tierra 

 del Fuego or the Asiatic tundras, in pursuit of merry 

 hares that continue to flourish in purer air. 



The author has certainly made out a good case 

 for the strong appeal of his favourite sport to keen 

 sportsmen and sportswomen of all ages, of moderate 

 means, and of proficiency in the saddle or otherwise. 

 He has also indicates how considerable tracts of 

 suitable country in this island are still unexploited by 

 harriers or other dogs entered to hare. The distribu- 

 tion of that animal is admittedly irregular, for whereas 



