170 HARE-HUNTING AND HARRIERS 



The country was well stocked with hares until the year 

 of the great " Foot and Mouth " epidemic, about 1873, 

 when hares were all but exterminated. Since then 

 Mr. Ryan has turned out several lots of hares, and there 

 is now a fair supply. Hares in the Scarteen country 

 seem always to have been small and hardy, and 

 possessed of great running powers. Mr. Ryan first 

 enlarged deer in 1884 ; since that time he hunts hares 

 up to November and deer for the rest of the season. 



" I prefer," says Mr. Ryan, " the beagles to any 

 other blood, on account of their keen scent and wonder- 

 ful tongue ; the music of the black-and-tan pack is 

 superior to anything you will hear elsewhere. My 

 hounds are pure beagles, and have neither harrier 

 nor foxhound blood, nor is there the slightest blood- 

 hound cross in them. Their long ears, heavy jowls, 

 and deep tongue lead people to suppose that there 

 is a bloodhound strain ; but this, emphatically, is 

 not the case. They are identical with the Kerry beagle, 

 whose origin is also French ; and when I require a cross 

 I always get it from Kerry. 



" In 1870 I got four and a half couples from Sir 

 Maurice O'Connell, of Lake View, Kerry, when he 

 was dispersing the pack which had been for generations 

 in the O'Connell family. In 1881 I got three couples 

 from Chute, of Chute HaU, Kerry, who was then 

 giving up his old family pack. The Scarteen hounds 

 are, and always have been, black-and-tan. They are 

 twenty-three inches high ; the kennel consists of 

 eighteen couples, and I usually hunt fifteen couples." 



It is, I think, an almost unique record that, since 

 1735, this pack should have been hunted by four 

 Masters only, viz., the present owner, and his father, 

 grandfather, and great-grandfather. This gives an 

 average of forty-two years to each Mastership. The 

 Scarteen country is a very big one, consisting of endless 



