HORSES AND HOUNDS. 277 



making a short digression to answer Lis inquiries upon this 

 subject, as far as I feel competent to do so ; but I must premise 

 that, although I served an apprenticeship to thistle-whipping 

 under the best master of harriers in his day, I never was a 

 genuine hare-hunter at heart; but — degudihusnon disputandwn 

 — every man has his own peculiar hobby, and, at any rate, hare- 

 hunting ranks a long way before calf-hunting ; one is sport in 

 its legitimate sense, the other is not. Beckford remarks, that 

 if you make a serious business of hare-hunting, you spoil it. 

 The same observation may hold good with regard to fox- 

 hunting, or any other hunting. To make a serious business of 

 what is intended only as a recreation or amusement, defeats its 

 primary object. To affirm that every man who goes out 

 hunting has no other end in view but a day's pleasurable 

 amusement would be not exactly correct. Some go for one 

 reason, some for another, and some for no reason at all, except 

 to kill time ; but a real sportsman goes out to enjoy himself. 

 The prospect of a day's hunting puts him in high and buoyant 

 spirits, and when mounted on his hunter, he leaves dull care 

 behind him, not sitting behind his saddle, as it is said — atra 

 cura sedit jjost equltem — but sitting in any other position dull 

 care may fancy, in a ditch by the road side, or, perhaps, at home 

 in his arm-chair. 



On a fine hunting morning we feel above all the cares and 

 troubles of life, and not only in charity, but in good humour with 

 every one and everything around us ; in short, hunting is any- 

 thing and everything but a serious business to the real lover of 

 the sport. Fox-hunting and hare-hunting, however, are in their 

 essential properties about as wide asunder as the two poles. 

 Turning a hare up in view before a lot of high-bred fox-hounds 

 of about twenty-two inches in height, is not hare-hunting, 

 although I have known some who considered it a high merit to 

 ride a hare to death in this fashion. A real pack of harriers 

 must set about their business in a very different manner tothis. 

 Avoid giving them a view of the hare when found, if possible ; 

 it only makes them wild. Harriers must depencl entirely on 

 their noses to be worth anything as harriers. It has been said 

 that a well bred fox-hound has a nose superior to every other 

 hound ; perhaps he has, but I am not quite clear that I should 

 select thorough-bred fox-hounds to hunt hares with, were I to 

 commence a pack of harriers. 



In the pack to which I have just alluded, we had three dif- 

 ferent kinds of hounds. The old southern, the true fox-hound, 

 and a cross between these two. The latter, in my opinion, were 

 the best harriers. We had one bitch in particular, called 



