SOME NOTABLE RUNS 237 



heath. Here the two foxhound bitches ' Ruby ' and 

 ' Fairmaid ' distmguished themselves ; they took up 

 the scent and killed in Cronkstone Wood ; two hours, 

 twenty-eight minutes." " How many foxes," adds 

 his commentator, " could stand before Bel voir bitches 

 like this ! " Two days after this great run, the High 

 Peak, meeting at Gotham Gate, found near Cliff House 

 and had a wonderful run of an hour and ten minutes. 

 At the end the hare fell dead, one hundred yards in 

 front of the pack. Instances of hares falling dead 

 before hounds in this way, after a very severe hunt, 

 are not common, still, they do occur. Colonel Aikman 

 tells me of a similar incident which happened in a run 

 in Lanarkshire on October 31, 1898. The hare 

 dropped dead two fields in front of hounds after a 

 long hunt. These cases happen, I fancy, more often 

 where hares are hunted with dwarf foxhounds, or 

 with harriers containing a good deal of foxhound 

 blood, than with ordinary harriers. I imagine that 

 the severity of the pace is greater and the hare is much 

 more pressed throughout. 



Before I quit Derbyshire hare-hunting I will make 

 mention of an extraordinary instance of endurance 

 in a hound. Towards the end of the season of 1892, 

 while hunting to the south of Newhaven, one of the 

 High Peak bitches, " Dauntless," was lost. Fair- 

 clough, the huntsman, feared she had fallen down 

 one of the several disused lead-mines, and tried every 

 one he could find. He obtained no response, however, 

 and reluctantly gave up the search as hopeless. A 

 month and a day later a farmer, having lost a lamb 

 in this part of the country, also examined the same 

 mines and presently heard a faint whine. No ladder 

 could be obtained of sufficient length and a miner 

 went down the shaft on a rope. He found the hound 



