COST AND EQUIPMENT 223 



fashion for £250 per annum. For ;£300 per annum 

 the thing can be done yet more comfortably. A foot- 

 pack, as I have shown, can be run well on £125 per 

 annum. In the case of the more reasonable estimates 

 I have given, rent of kennels is sometimes included, 

 in others it is absent. There is very frequently some 

 kind friend to the Hunt, a Master or ex-Master, who 

 has, at one time or another, built or adapted kennels, 

 which he either lends to the Hunt or lets at a very low 

 figure. In the same way the pack of hounds is often 

 lent, practically for an indeterminate period. 



It is, of course, always to be remembered that, to 

 a man starting a pack of harriers where none have 

 previously existed, there must be a good many heavy 

 expenses to begin with. The pack has to be got 

 together, and even a scratch pack of twelve or fifteen 

 couples of draft hounds will average probably from 

 £l ids. to £2 per hound. Kennels may have to be 

 erected, or adapted from outhouses or old farm build- 

 ings. This may run into all sorts of figures. He is 

 a lucky man who can obtain practically new kennels 

 for less than from £100 to £150. 



Horses need not be anything like so extravagant 

 an item for hare-hunting as for the chase of the fox. 

 The class of hunter needed with harriers is a handy, 

 confidential mount, which can jump well and cleanly 

 and has a good mouth. There is so much turning 

 with a horse, that your hard-mouthed, free-going, 

 impetuous animal is useless. Even in fox-hunting, 

 it is a sine qua non that huntsmen and whips shall 

 have handy mounts, though they should be at the 

 same time good gallopers and bold, clean fencers. 

 With harriers, pace is not so much an essential. Now 

 and again, it is true, hounds wiU run like wildfire, with 

 a straight-necked hare, and even a first-rate hunter 



