FINDING A HARE. 445 



it. After harvest, hares are found in all situations; 

 in stubble fields, hedgerows, woods, and brakes ; 

 but when the leaves fall, they prefer lying upon 

 open ground, and particularly on a stale fallow, 

 that is, one which has been some time ploughed ; 

 as likewise after frost, and towards the spring of 

 the year. In furze, or gorse, they lie so close, as to 

 allow themselves nearly to be trodden upon, rather 

 than quit their form. The down or upland-bred 

 hare shows best sport ; that bred in a wet, marshy 

 district, the worst, although the scent from the 

 latter may be the stronger. If a hare, when not 

 viewed away, runs slowly at first, it is generally a 

 sign that she is an old one, and likely to aflbrd 

 sport ; but hares never run so well as when they 

 do not know where they are. Thus, trapped hares, 

 turned out before hounds, almost invariably run 

 straight on end, and generally till they can run no 

 longer ; and they most commonly go straight in a 

 fog. 



The chase of the hare has been altered, and ren- 

 dered less difficult in some degree, by the improve- 

 ment of the hound used in it. In the first place, 

 she is now so pressed by the pace at which she is 

 hunted, that she has not time, when first started, 

 to visit the works of the preceding night ; nor is 

 she, from the same cause, so likely to run her foil. 

 But when making out her foil, hounds are not left 

 to puzzle over it now as formerly, but, if it be not 

 quickly done, are rated forward by a whipper-in, 

 to make good the head ; and if that do not succeed, 

 to make it good round the fences. Formerly, when 



