314 HARE-HUNTING AND HARRIERS 



Other meuses were directed to be left open, lest hares 

 should become alarmed, or disgusted, and so forsake 

 the place. Where traps were set, the meuses were 

 of brick. When hares became very shy of the traps 

 and could not be readily caught, it was sometimes 

 found necessary to drive them in from the outside — ' 

 where they were often thickly congregated — with 

 spaniels. This was, of course, a method seldom 

 resorted to. 



" The number of hares that a warren will supply," 

 says Beckford, " is hardly to be conceived. I seldom 

 turned out less, in one year, than thirty brace of trap- 

 hares, besides many others killed in the environs, 

 of which no account was taken." He adds an amusing 

 anecdote. " I had once some conversation with a 

 gentleman about the running of my trap-hares, who 

 said he had been told that catching a hare, and 

 tying a piece of ribbon to her ear, was a sure way to make 

 her run straight. I make no doubt of it," he adds, 

 " and so would a canister tied to her tail.^^ Hare- 

 warrens, then, where hares are scarce, might surely, 

 be cultivated at the present time, as they were by 

 country gentlemen in those fine old hunting days of 

 the Georgian period. For turning down, they would 

 be of invaluable assistance. 



But of the future of hares in this country, or of the 

 right sort of hounds to hunt them, I, for one, have no 

 fear. One's only dread is, that at the present rate of 

 increase in population, and of the growth of towns 

 and cities, large portions of England will be, within 

 the next two hundred years, rendered impossible for 

 hunting. Already infinite mischief is done by the 

 enormous manufacturing towns in various parts of 

 the kingdom. Go to Yorkshire, and walk through the 

 country within seven miles of Leeds, Sheffield, and 



