THE ANTIQUITY OF HUNTING. 33 



running by scent were used, it was only to drive the game from 

 covert into the open for their fleeter fellows. Amongst those 

 who entertained this idea was the poet of the chase, Somer- 

 ville, who says, in the introduction to his poems, " It does not 

 appear to me that the ancients had. any notion of pursuing wild 

 beasts by the scent only, with a regular, well-disciplined pack 

 of hounds." In the latter particular, perchance he may have 

 been right ; for Xenophon, whose authority is the earliest I can 

 anywhere find for hunting hounds in a pack, treats us to a long 

 catalogue of the faults to which hounds were in his day inclined, 

 and to which a fair share of babblers and skirters would now 

 be mere tarts and cheesecakes. I admit that he was, although 

 the Beckford of his day, an arrant poacher, or he would not 

 have recommended the use of nets ; but I certainly gather that 

 the hare, having once had the luck to escape those same engines 

 of destruction, and the boy whose mission it was to knock her 

 on the head when she fell into them, endeavoured to hunt 

 her fairly down by scent, being at the same time, though, as 

 open to a " holloa " and a lift as any modern huntsman on the 

 grass with a flashy pack in hand and a thrusting field behind 

 him. That his directions are intended for hounds running by 

 scent, and not by sight, is certain from the instructions to the 

 master, huntsman, or whatever he may be called, running after 

 them to be careful " not to come in the teeth of them, for that 

 would perplex them," — this, I take it, being a mild form of 

 remonstrance against getting over the line, which in these later 

 days has developed into " Pray hold hard, sir ! " " God bless 

 you ! hold hard, sir ! " " God — — you, sir ! will you hold hard 1 " 

 Again, on catching a view, he is to cheer them on, and being 

 himself thrown out, though he can still hear them opening on 

 the line, but not see them, put that query, so popular in modern 

 days, of " Have you seen the hounds ?" and again, having nicked, 

 encourage them by name, if running, but, should they be over 

 it, give the equivalent for " Hark back ! " and proceed to make 

 his cast, having, like hare-hunters of an age not so very remote, 



