2'.)Ci HISTOUY OF 



scent, pursue slowly and with united skill, and the poor animal 

 soon again hears the fatal tidings of their approach. Sometimes 

 when sore hunted it will start a fresh hare, and squat in the same 

 form ; sometimes it will creep under the door of a shcep-cot, 

 and hide among the sheep ; sometimes it will run among them, 

 and no vigilance can drive it from the flock ; some will enter 

 holes like the rabbit, which the hunters call going to vault ; some 

 will go up one side of the hedge and come down the other; and 

 it has been known that a hare sorely hunted has got upon the top 

 of a quick-set hedge, and run a good way thereon, by which it 

 has effectually evaded the hounds. It is no unusual thing also 

 for them to betake themselves to furze bushes, and to leap from 

 one to another, by which the dogs ai'e frequently misled. How- 

 ever, the first doubling a hare makes is generally a key to all 

 its future attempts of that kind, the latter being exactly like the 

 former. The young hares tread heavier, and leave a stronger 

 scent than the old, because their limbs are weaker ; and the 

 more this forlorn creature tires, the heavier it treads, and the 

 stronger is the scent it leaves. A buck, or male hare, is known 

 by its choosing to run upon hard highways, feeding farther from 

 the wood-sides, and making its doubling of a greater compass 

 than the female. The male having ma le a turn or two about 

 its form, frequently leads the hounds five or six miles on a 

 stretch ; but the female keeps close by some covert side, turns, 

 crosses, and winds among the bushes like a rabbit, and seldom 

 nms directly forward. In general, however, both male and fe- 

 male regulate their conduct according to the weather. In a moist 

 day they hold by the highways more than at any other time, be- 

 cause the scent is then strongest upon the grass. If tliey come 

 to the side of a grove or spring, they forbear to enter, but squat 

 down by the side thereof until the hounds have overshot them ; 

 and then, turning along their former path, make to their old 

 form, from which they vainly hope for protection.* 



* An old hare, when hunted by a common hound, seems to regiilate lier 

 fiig:)it from tlie very first .according' to the speed of lier pursuer. Slie seens 

 to know from experience, that very rapid fliglit would be less certain of 

 rarrying- her out of the reach of danger than a more deliberate one, whereby 

 the chase is protracted to a greater length of time, and she can cfintinue tho 

 exertion of her strength longer than if she exerted her full speed at first. 

 She seems to have observed, that in grounds where there are many young 

 shnibs, the contact of her body h'aves behind her a stronger ^cent, and one 



