196 HARE-HUNTING AND HARRIERS 



by the partial absence of music, and by the way they 

 raise their hackles,* but there is one thing harriers 

 will not do, and that is break up a fox, though I have 

 seen them tear one badly. . . . Hunting a deer, 

 however, has a bad effect on harriers, as it makes them 

 wild, inclined to flash, and sometimes it inclines them 

 to be unsteady at sheep." 



Upon the whole, I am firmly of opinion that, if all 

 masters and huntsmen of harriers were polled, their 

 consensus would be that runnmg fox or deer is by no 

 means a good thing for a pack of harriers. Harriers, 

 if they are good ones, by the way, wiU run down and 

 kill a deer easily enough. On October 9, 1875, the 

 High Peak harriers hunted an outlying buck from 

 Mr. F. Potter's, through the Harthill Woods, then 

 past Beech Plantations, over Gratton Ponds and 

 Smerrill Grange, and pulled him down in the road 

 in an hour and forty minutes, after a magnificent run. 

 Mr. Nesfield, the Master of that period, when speaking of 

 this run, used to mention, as a curious fact, that harriers, 

 only entered to hare, and in full work, should have hunted 

 and stuck to a deer through woods abounding in hares. 



Harriers, although they run the hare fiercely enough, 

 are not all of them, by any means, keen in the breaking 

 of it up. It has been noticed, times out of mind, by 

 all harrier men, that not infrequently the best hounds 

 are quite indifferent about the worry. On the other 

 hand, it would be futile even for a slack huntsman to 

 trust to hounds not breaking up and devouring their 

 hare. If they are alone they will do it. In hunting 

 with foot-harriers, when hounds have got away and 

 kiUed by themselves, I have a good many times arrived 

 on the scene to find but a patch or two of fur and 

 the skull remaining. Collectively, hounds must have 

 * This is one of the infalhble signs. 



