SOME ENGLISH COURSING CLUBS 



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and are almost alternately grass and arable land. The best 

 of the coursing takes place oh either side of Leeming Lane, 

 that famous old North Road which has for more than a 

 hundred years served as the trotting ground for North Riding 

 matches, and hares are generally driven off the ploughing on to 

 grass. The ' crowd ' have to move pretty often, but a fair view 

 of the sport is always obtainable, and the going is for the most 

 part first-rate, flints and stones being almost entirely absent. 

 The breed of hares, too, is far above the average, and the 

 courses are, in nineteen cases out of twenty, sufficiently long 

 to thoroughly test the greyhounds' merits. I may here recount 

 an incident which occurred some half-dozen years ago, and of 

 which I myself was a witness. 



We were coursing in the low ground close to Rainton 

 village, where the inclosures are rather smaller than on 'the 

 Moor,' and where also the hedges are very much thicker and 

 higher. Hares were being driven into a grass field, Bootiman 

 the slipper being hidden behind the fence, Mr. Hedley stand- 

 ing some fifty yards out. A brace of greyhounds were slipped, 

 the hare was reached about the centre of the field, and a pretty 

 course followed, puss finally taking her pursuers through the 

 further hedge. Some twenty points at least were scored in the 

 slipping field, and Mr. Hedley rode over to the other side as 

 his dogs worked their hare across. He (Mr. H.) could, how- 

 ever, see nothing more of the course after he reached the hedge, 

 and so the decision was given, and a second brace put in 

 the slips. Another hare was quickly sent through, slipped at, 

 coursed, and killed, without having left the field, and then a 

 third brace of greyhounds were taken to Bootiman, who still 

 remained in the same place. We had not long to wait for the 

 third hare, and she, being of the short running, jerking type, 

 went round and round the centre of the field, affording a pretty 

 course of the sort, and really standing up well. This trial had 

 been in progress for some considerable time, when hare number 

 one, with her attendant followers, struggled back into the 

 original arena, and there we had the spectacle of the two 



