28o HARE-HUNTING AND HARRIERS 



admixture of blue-mottle. The blue-mottle colour 

 always indicates an ancient strain, and where you get 

 that colour you have also good nose and cry, two highly 

 important accessories in hare-hunting. Black-and- 

 tan is a colour that, latterly, has been coming into 

 vogue somewhat, where beagles are concerned, and 

 judges at shows seem to favour it. It is not, however, 

 in my humble opinion, so true or so characteristic a 

 beagle colour as blue-mottle, or hound colour, or a 

 mixture of the two. 



As regards size, the tendency of the last score of 

 years has been, I am afraid, to increase the standard. 

 Some beagle packs now hunting, are distinctly too 

 big and approach more nearly the size of harriers than 

 that of beagles. A good pack of beagles, that is a pack 

 of beagles which are not only well-looking, but can 

 properly account for their hares, after a more or less 

 prolonged hunt, ought not to be less than thirteen 

 and a half inches or more than fifteen and a half inches. 

 Some packs run to sixteen inches, but I believe that 

 a fifteen and a half-inch beagle will be found, in nearly 

 every kind of country, good enough to kill hares in 

 sterling fashion. Personally, I incline to hunting 

 with fourteen and a half or fifteen-inch beagles, which 

 go quite fast enough to keep out of the way of the foot 

 runners, and bring their hares to hand very satis- 

 factorily. 



Seventy or eighty years ago, as I have shown, it 

 seemed almost as if hare-hunting with beagles was 

 likely soon to become a thing of the past. Twenty 

 or twenty-five years ago there began to be distinct 

 symptoms of a revival of interest in this most excel- 

 lent sport. But even then you might have counted 

 the packs hunting in England on the fingers of your 

 two hands. Then the interest began to spread, and 



