SPORT IN IRELAND 159 



from thirty to thirty-one packs of harriers are usually 

 in existence. Many of these packs are as smart and 

 as workmanlike as the best of those on the eastern 

 side of St. George's Channel, but here and there, in 

 remote parts, you may still chance to light upon queer, 

 go-as-you-please establishments, which remind one 

 that the ways and customs so humorously described 

 by Charles Lever and Miss Edgeworth are not quite 

 extinct. Reduced gentlemen and squireens, whose 

 packs are not recorded in Baily's or the " Field " Hound 

 List, still keep a few couples of hounds, and entertain 

 their guests with impromptu hunts, very much after 

 the fashion of Sir Harry Scattercash, in " Sponge's 

 Sporting Tour," in pursuit of fox, hare, or any other 

 kind of quarry that may be found available. 



I was talking with a friend, no great while since, on 

 the subject of kennel and hound management among 

 harrier packs in Ireland. " Don't pry too closely 

 into these things," he replied ; " I have known packs 

 of harriers which thought themselves well housed in 

 a ruined stable, and where the hounds scavenged for 

 their food just wherever they could pick it up." 

 That is, of course, a libel upon most of the Irish packs 

 of harriers, but still it is undoubted that, whether in 

 fox-hunting or in the chase of the hare, things are not 

 always conducted in quite so orthodox a fashion as 

 we are accustomed to over here. For one thing it is 

 the custom of the country, and for another money is 

 not so plentiful. Even in England and Wales, some 

 of the smaller packs of harriers, and foxhounds, too, 

 are not always managed on the grand scale. It is 

 impossible that they should be. 



I have, among the correspondence I have acquired 

 during the preparation of this volume, some notes by 

 a gentleman — one of the best all-round sportsmen 



