254 HARE-HUNTING AND HARRIERS 



they contain advice on hare-hunting which it is 

 impossible to better. 



But hare-hunting on foot is not alone for the athlete 

 and for youth. Many a man of middle-age, many a 

 grey-haired farmer, many a lady, can watch the chase 

 in all its diverse wanderings and enjoy a long day's 

 sport without running a hundred yards. Thanks to 

 that instinct which seems, in nine cases out of ten, 

 to compel the hare to return to the neighbourhood of 

 the very place where she was first put up, the spec- 

 tators, especially in fairly open country or from a hill- 

 side, can often see as much of the hunt as the runners 

 striding along with infinite labour and endurance in 

 the wake of the hounds. Nay, it is not by any means 

 an unusual thing to see those who have been merely 

 watching and not following, nick in just as they see 

 hounds running into their game, and actually be up 

 at the death before the three or four stout runners 

 and jumpers who have been steadily sticking to the 

 line for an hour or more, Mr. Otho Paget, an enthu- 

 siastic hare-hunter, has said that hunting on foot is 

 the only sportsmanlike way of pursuing this animal. 

 I do not go so far with him as that, but I do agree that 

 hare-hunting on foot, if a man is fit enough and ath- 

 letic enough to run with hounds, is one of the very 

 finest pastimes in the world. Personally, after having 

 tested almost every kind of sport, mounted and on 

 foot, I know few pleasures to equal it. On foot a 

 man can, to my mind, see even more of the actual 

 science of hare-hunting, one of the most beautiful 

 and interesting chases in the world, than on horse- 

 back. A man on foot can go anywhere. He can 

 penetrate woodlands and copses where a horse cannot 

 follow. He can cross a big stream, either by leaping 

 or wading, or a combination of both, where a horse 



