io6 HARE-HUNTING AND HARRIERS 



of harriers : " It is an almost invariable rule in all 

 hunting to make the head good." The hounds, then, 

 are encouraged to cast quietly forward in the direction 

 in which the hare was trending, taking care to get 

 their heads up as little as possible. If this fails, a 

 circular cast should be made. This may again fail. 

 Then there remains the chance that the hare may 

 have squatted somewhere near at hand, and close 

 search should be made before giving up and trying 

 for a fresh hare. 



Where a hare has been hard pressed, and hounds 

 come to a check, the chances are that she is down 

 somewhere, or that she has doubled back on her old 

 line ; when hard put to it, she will resort to all sorts 

 of tricks ; she may even have run a hedge or a wall 

 for a little way. She has a favourite dodge of leaping 

 on one side and squatting in a ditch, especially after 

 having run a road for some little way. The experienced 

 huntsman has to remember all these and a score of 

 other possibilities, and use his judgment accordingly. 

 He can often tell by the demeanour of some knowing 

 old hound, poking about mysteriously, what is likely 

 to have been the hare's ruse on this particular occasion. 

 It ought always to be remembered that, while a fox 

 will almost invariably cross a road straight away 

 and make across the next field, a hare will almost 

 as invariably run the road for some little distance. 

 Occasionally, as I have mentioned in the chapter on 

 " The Hare and its Ways," these animals will run 

 road for an incredible distance. Here comes the 

 turn of that jewel of the pack, the good road-hunter. 

 If scent is so poor that even the best road-hunters 

 can make nothing of it, then the expertness of the 

 human tracker can be utilised. I have seen a hare 

 " pricked " for an extraordinary distance along a road, 



