CHAPTER IX 
HARES AND RABBITS 
Hares more satisfactory than rabbits—Keep your hares quiet—Hares 
and hounds—Hare disease—Damage by hares—Rabbits, rats, 
and roots—How rabbits use their teeth—Hares and holes— 
Shooting hares—Rabbit-shooters—Warm work. 
I was so fortunate as to have a sprinkling of hares 
on all the land over which I was keeper. And as 
I was obliged to keep down rabbits—if possible, 
to the point of extinction—I saw no reason why | 
should not compromise matters by getting up the 
hares. A bag of twenty hares was considered very 
good for one day. We got twenty at my first 
covert shoot. Then the bag rose to forty (which 
was equal to the known record for the wood), and 
after another year or so to fifty. The most we ever 
got was sixty-four; and that was in two-thirds of 
the wood, when the rest was cut down and bare. 
Though the largest, it was the worst hare covert 
I had. It is fair to the covert to say that not a 
yard of netting was used when the sixty-four hares 
were killed, and that they were obtained incidentally 
with eighty-two wild pheasants. I suppose that, 
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