!91 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



CHAPTER XXYIL 



THE HARRIER. 



It is admirable to observe the natural instinct of enmity and cunning, 

 whereby one beast, being as it were confederate with man, by whom he 

 is maintained, serves his designs upon others. A curious mind is ex- 

 ceedingly satisfied to see the game % before him, and after that hath 

 withdrawn itselfe from his sight to see the whole line where it hath 

 passed over, with all the doublings and cross-works which the amazed beast 

 hath made, recovered again, and all that maze wrought out by the intelli- 

 gence which he holds with dogs. This is most pleasant, and, as it were, a 

 masterpiece of natural magique. — C. Wase. 



In the present day no hound is to be found of so many different 

 types, sizes, and varieties as the harrier. In fact, he ranges from 

 four-and- twenty inches down to fourteen, and varies as much in 

 style of hunting and formation as in height. The earliest 

 British harrier, in my opinion, is the old Manchester or Southern 

 hound, no doubt a native of Britain, and used before the time 

 of the Eomans in the chase of large game by the Ancient 

 Britons. Whittaker, in his " History of Manchester," says, — 

 " This, the good old hound of our Mancuman fathers, which is 

 so remarkably distinguished over all the rest of the kingdom by 

 the peculiarity of its aspect and the peculiarities of its frame ; 

 and this must certainly have been the fine original from which 

 the many striking and picturesque touches in those well-known 

 lines of Shakespeare were immediately transcribed : — 



Ilip. — I was with Hercules and Cadmus once, 



When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear 



