SOME NOTABLE RUNS 245 



workers, and held their own gallantly with one of the 

 best packs in the country. " Brooksby " several 

 times made mention of them in his hunting notes of 

 that period. It was a singular experiment, but it 

 proved, at any rate, that the Welsh hound, with his 

 rough coat and not always perfect shape — according 

 to modern ideas — is good enough to hold his own in 

 the best of company. 



I have already mentioned the fact that hares will 

 occasionally go to ground when hard pressed, just as 

 they will betake themselves to that unfamiliar element, 

 the sea. The Crickhowell last season ran a hare to 

 ground in a cleft amid some rocks. A terrier was 

 put in and killed her, and the hare was later on got 

 out with some difficulty. Some weeks afterwards, 

 another hare went to earth in the same place ; after 

 much digging and shifting of boulders, this one was 

 found fast jammed between two rocks at least six feet 

 below the surface. 



Among the most fruitful sources of danger to harriers 

 and foxhounds alike are railway lines and sea cliffs. 

 Many a good hound has, unhappily, fallen a victim 

 to one or the other. Colonel Robertson Aikman's 

 harriers, in March 1889, had one of the most extra- 

 ordinary escapes on record. Three or four couples of 

 them were not only on the line as a train came by, 

 but actually went under the whole length of the train 

 in motion and escaped unhurt. This was a rather 

 wonderful day with these hounds as, in addition to 

 the train episode, they ran a hare into the river Clyde 

 and killed her there. 



Every one familiar with harriers has seen a hare 

 run through the jaws of a pack, as it were, and escape 

 with her life. Colonel Aikman tells me of a remark- 

 able instance of this with his pack in Derbyshire last 



