44 HARE-HUNTING AND HARRIERS 



suitable place. Old sporting writers termed this 

 " going to vault," an expression, I fancy, now never 

 heard. 



These animals are occasionally taken when young 

 and kept in confinement. The three maintained by 

 the poet Cowper, from about the year 1774, are well- 

 known instances. " Puss, one of the trio," says 

 Cowper, " grew presently familiar, would leap into 

 my lap, raise himself upon his hinder feet, and bite 

 the hair from my temples. He would suffer me 

 to take him up and to carry him about in my arms, 

 and has more than once fallen asleep upon my knee. 

 He was ill three days, during which time I nursed him, 

 kept him apart from his fellows (for, like many other 

 wild animals, they persecute one of their own species 

 that is sick), and by constant care, and trying him with 

 a variety of herbs, restored him to perfect health. 

 No creature could be more grateful than my patient 

 after his recovery, a sentiment which he most signifi- 

 cantly expressed by licking my hand, first the back 

 of it, then the palm, then every finger separately, 

 then between all the fingers, as if anxious to leave no 

 part of it unsaluted ; a ceremony which he never 

 performed but once again on a similar occasion." 

 By degrees Cowper habituated his pet to its liberty 

 in the garden. " Puss " soon began to be impatient 

 for the return of these excursions. " He would invite 

 me to the garden by drumming upon my knee, and 

 by a look of such expression as it was not possible to 

 misinterpret. If this rhetoric did not immediately 

 succeed, he would take the skirt of my coat between 

 his teeth and pull it with all his force." This hare 

 became, in fact, perfectly tamed, and was actually 

 happier in human society than when shut up with 

 his natural kinsfolk. " Tiney," another of Cowper's 



