MODERN HARRIERS 83 



the foxhound blend has crept in and the pace thereby- 

 been improved. Runs with such packs are not, there- 

 fore, anything hke the long and tedious business that 

 hare-hunting used to be in the days of our great-great- 

 grandfathers. A pure harrier pack of good stamp may 

 at the present day be trusted to run into its hare 

 in from forty minutes to an hour and a half, according 

 to the stoutness of the hare itself and the state of the 

 country. Personally, I think a good hare-hunt ought 

 not to occupy much less than an hour. I have seen 

 hares killed by a nearly pure-bred pack of nineteen- 

 inch harriers in five-and-twenty minutes, when 

 scent has been extraordinarily good and the hare, 

 perhaps, only an average one ; and I have seen with 

 the same pack magnificent runs lasting from two to 

 three hours, in which hunting was most enjoyable 

 from beginning to end. 



The modern harrier, as even the unsophisticated 

 reader may have already gathered, is an animal, then, 

 running in various shapes and sizes. He runs also 

 in a variety of colours. The majority of harrier packs 

 are hunted on horseback, and average from eighteen 

 to twenty-one inches. The Pendle Forest, a foxhound 

 cross, reach as much as twenty-two and a half inches, 

 while the Scarteen Beagles, a very old-fashioned Irish 

 pack of black-and-tans (Kerry Beagles), are twenty- 

 three-inch hounds. Among the harriers of least 

 stature among English packs are Lady Gifford's, 

 hunting near Chichester, which average seventeen 

 inches ; the Glanyrafon, an eighteen-inch Montgomery- 

 shire pack ; Mr. Lethbridge's Stud-book harriers of 

 eighteen inches, hunting in Cornwall ; Mr. Lloyd- 

 Price's, a pure harrier, eighteen-inch pack, hunting 

 in Carmarthenshire ; Mr. Mill's (Dorsetshire), seven- 

 teen- to eighteen-inch ; the Mostyn and Talacre, North 



