ANIMALS PURSUED IN ENGLAND AT THE I*RESENT DAY. 39 



large counties, which "vvere a necessity formerly, when foxes 

 were not so plentiful, are no longer needed, cannot indeed bo 

 properly hunted ; and each year we find an outlying district, 

 on the borders of perhaps two hunts, welded into a new 

 one, by each giving up a portion which they seldom hunted. 

 Ey this means sport is increased all round, more hunters kept, 

 more men employed, and everything tends to the general good ; 

 for, as a rule, the more foxes are hunted, the better they are 

 preserved, and there is no doubt but they show better sport. 

 Thus, in a great measure, the fox has supplied the place, and 

 more than supplied it, of those animals which, from increas- 

 ing population, enclosure of waste lands, and other causes, 

 have dropped out of the list as beasts of chase. There is no 

 doubt he is best suited to the present condition of the country, 

 and hence, on the principle of the survival of the fittest, others, 

 who were at one time preferred before him, have had to give 

 place. 



Next in importance — at any rate as regards the numbers to 

 which it affords amusement, though far below the stag with re- 

 gard to sport — comes the hare. Ever held in high estimation, 

 she to the present time is a means of healthy and pleasant 

 recreation to thousands who have neither nerve nor pocket to 

 indulge in the more exciting, though, at the same time, more 

 dangerous and expensive, sport of fox-hunting. This will be 

 seen when I say that about one hundred regular packs of har- 

 riers are to be accounted for in England and Ireland. I am sure 

 that, at the same time, there are a considerable number of small 

 private packs and trencher-fed lots that are known nothing 

 about out of their own immediate neighbourhood ; consequently 

 they are to be found in no published list of hounds. JSTeither 

 amongst these do I include the foot-beagles, which are kept in 

 some few localities. 



Of stag-hounds, the United Kingdom can boast seventeen 

 packs, and of these sixteen are dependent for their sport on 

 turned-out deer, so that, in speaking of beasts of chase, I may 



