114 HARE-HUNTING AND HARRIERS 



inscrutable. Countries vary very much, of course, 

 in their scent-carrying capacity ; the changes of soil 

 may be noted frequently in the course of a single 

 run. Temperature has, of course, much to do with 

 the matter, as has the constitution, and even the sex, 

 of the animal hunted. For instance, many old hunters 

 are agreed that a doe, and especially a doe in young, 

 affords a good deal less scent than a buck hare. Storms 

 are against good scenting, and a sunshiny, melting 

 morning, after a night's sharp hoar frost is, perhaps, 

 the most fatal of all for good hunting. Northerly 

 or easterly winds used popularly to be supposed to 

 be extremely bad for scent, and indeed they are so, 

 perhaps, rather more often than not. Yet, as most 

 sportsmen know, there are days of easterly and northerly 

 wind when hounds run like wildfire. Shortly before 

 Christmas 1902, I hunted on Pevensey Marshes, 

 which were white with a powdering of snow, in a freez- 

 ing north-easterly wind. It was one of the bitterest 

 of hunting days I ever remember in a long experience 

 of fox- and hare-hunting. Yet on this day we enjoyed 

 a magnificent run of two hours and ten minutes, with 

 excellent scenting, and wound up with a kill. I should 

 mention that we changed twice during the course of 

 this run. I was out with a foot-pack, and there were 

 many dykes to get over, and hounds, huntsman, and 

 some of the field, who had got wet, went home with 

 a not inconsiderable coating of ice about them. The 

 southerly wind and cloudy sky, so often sung, are 

 by no means the unerring heralds of a good scenting 

 day. In a fine, warm mist, with driving rain, I have 

 noticed that scent will often lie magnificently ; while, 

 per contra, in thick, white, still fog I have occasionally 

 experienced very poor sport. There are a few rare 

 and wonderful days — those days which Beckford 



