ii6 HARE-HUNTING 



lively, too light, and too fleet." He thinks 

 that if the day is long enough you might kill 

 with the first species, and if the country was 

 deep and wet, the others might be drowned. 

 Beckford bred for many years an " infinity 

 of hounds " before he got what he wanted, 

 but at last he had the pleasure to see them 

 "very handsome," "small yet bony," after 

 which, he cynically remarks, "when they 

 were thus perfect, I did as many others do, 

 I parted with them." 



Again, the hounds of those earlier days 

 were not, in point of pace and quality, equal 

 to hunting such wild foxes as there were. 

 It was only as the small harriers were 

 improved into the type of what we call fox- 

 hounds, that hunting-men realised that fox- 

 hunting was a high-class sport. Harriers 



