172 THOUGHTS UPON HUNTING. 



You ask me, What is the right time to leave off hare- 

 hunting ? — You should be guided in that by the season : 

 you should never hunt after March ; and, if the season be 

 forward, you should leave off sooner. 



Having now so considerably exceeded the plan that I 

 first proposed, you may wonder if I omit to say any thing of 

 slag-hun/ing. Believe me, if I do, it will not be for want of 

 respedl j but because 1 have seen very little of it. It is true, 

 1 hunted two winters at Turin; but their hunting, you 

 know, is no more like ours than is the hot meal we ihere 

 stood up to eat, to the English breakfast that we sit down 

 to here. — Were I to describe their manner of hunting, their 

 infinity of dogs, their number of huntsmen, their relays of 

 horses, their great saddles, great bitts, and jack-boots — it 

 would be no more to our present purpose than the descrip- 

 tion of a wild-b6ar chase in Germany, or the hunting of 

 jackalls in Bengal — C'csf une chasse magnifique, et voiia tout. 

 However, to give you an idea of their huntsmen, I must 

 tell you, that one day the stag, which Is very unusual^ 

 broke cover, and left the forest ; a circumstance which gave 

 as much pleasure to me as displeasure to all the rest : it put 

 every thing into confusion. I followed one of the hunts- 



