42 HARE-HUNTING AND HARRIERS 



passed giving absolute protection to hares between 

 the beginning of February and the end of July, and 

 it ought to be the business of every follower of hare- 

 hunting, every courser, and every good sportsman, 

 to see that such a Bill is without delay brought before 

 the two Houses and made law. Combination only 

 can ensure the proper protection of these unfortunate 

 animals, which in many parts of the country are 

 becoming almost unknown. I am bound to say 

 that, in districts where they are decently protected, 

 there is not the slightest difficulty in maintaining 

 a good head of hares. In the Pevensey Marsh country, 

 where farmers enjoy hare-hunting and coursing, we 

 have too many of these animals, and I have seen no 

 less than fourteen put up in the course of a single run. 

 Hares have many foes. In addition to coursers, 

 hunters, shooting-men, poachers — and all poachers 

 dearly love a hare — they have to run the gauntlet 

 of foxes, weasels, and stoats. Weasels and stoats 

 especially are deadly enemies, and young leverets, 

 exposed in an open form, once they are discovered — 

 and these bloodthirsty vermin are extraordinarily 

 acute in hunting up their hiding-places — fall easy 

 victims. The hare, however, manifestly from fear 

 of these murderers, scarcely ever brings forth her 

 young in a hedgerow, where stoats and weasels are 

 so fond of hunting. The town poacher and his well- 

 trained lurcher form an abiding danger to hares in 

 localities where they are fairly plentiful, and many 

 a good hare is destroyed by these vagrant and dangerous 

 allies. Of late a new development in poaching has 

 sprung up, and I know of an open district, where 

 hares are plentiful, where poachers get at them in 

 the following manner : These rascals cycle out with 

 their dogs at night, make for certain places which 



