284 HARE-HUNTING AND HARRIERS 



experience in the field would quickly falsify. I have had 

 a good deal of sport with beagles at different times, 

 and I have always seen a fair number of hares killed. 

 Indeed, given a country where hares are reasonably 

 abundant, the number of blank days with a beagle- 

 pack will be found to be surprisingly few. If you 

 hunt with beagles less than twelve or thirteen inches 

 in height, you must, of course, be prepared to find 

 your sport slower and your hares consequently more 

 difficult to bring to hand. But with fourteen-inch 

 beagles, of the right sort, and well handled, almost 

 as much sport is obtained as with a pack of harriers. 

 The Chawston beagles, for example, hunting from 

 Colesden Grange, St. Neots, had killed up to 

 February 13, in this last season of 1902-03, no fewer 

 than forty-nine hares, a capital record. As a sample 

 of the kind of sport to be got with a good pack, I may 

 state that, during the week this number was achieved, 

 the following sport was obtained. On February 6, 

 meeting at Colesden Grange, two hares were killed, 

 after good runs, while a third made a three mile point 

 and saved her scut. On the 9th, meeting at Long 

 Stow, near Kimbolton, some extraordinarily good 

 sport was shown. The first hare found afforded a 

 very fast run of an hour and five minutes, without a 

 check. The second hare gave a run almost as fault- 

 less, also without a check. In both instances hounds 

 ran into and killed their game in the open, after travers- 

 ing a splendid grass country. A third run took place 

 over plough, without blood, On the nth, the same 

 pack had a good run of two hours, chiefly over plough, 

 killing their hare between Wyboston and Eaton. The 

 Chawston are fifteen-inch beagles and maintain a 

 high level of sport. These are but samples of the kind 

 of thing to be seen daily with beagles in all parts of 



