270 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



labourer, tenant, or landlord. The shooting tenant, to whom the 

 landlord looks for the means to pay the charges on his estate, is the 

 principal sufferer, because farmers do not care to forego any right they 

 may possess — however useless or unsought it may have been — in order 

 to assist a stranger. On some few estates the Act has been a dead 

 letter, because the farmers' relations with their landlord were such 

 that they did not desire to vex him or curtail his enjoyment of his own 

 property for the sake of any advantage forced upon them without their 

 request by the Government of the day." 



Another passage in this chapter deserves quotation, on the 

 barbarous practice of shooting at Hares at long ranges. Mr. 

 Lascelles writes : — 



" Here let me put in a word, addressed chiefly to the youthful 

 sportsman, never to fire a long shot at a Hare going straight away 

 from him. It is but useless cruelty. I will suppose in these days of 

 weapons of precision, and careful education, that all our young friends 

 have learned to hold pretty straight. They do not, therefore, miss the 

 unfortunate Hare, as little bits of fleck floating in the air de- 

 monstrate ; but what becomes of her ? Occasionally she is picked up 

 by the beaters, dead in a hedgerow three fields away, but more often 

 she is killed — an emaciated wreck — by some shepherd's dog or cur 

 three weeks afterwards. The error and the cruelty are not chargeable 

 to the powers of the gun, nor to the aim of the owner, but to his bad 

 and hasty judgment in firing shots, some of which no doubt will 

 occasionally kill but which in nine cases out of ten he ought to 

 leave alone." 



Mr. Lascelles lays it down that thirty yards is the outside 

 range at which Hares should be shot when running straight away 

 from the sportsman, though when crossing the gun they may 

 easily be killed ten yards further off. He gives some useful hints 

 on aiming, and on the necessity of keeping the gun moving in the 

 direction in which the Hare is running. 



The sport of hunting the Hare with a pack of hounds is one 

 of the oldest, and in early times was very different to what it is 

 now. Mr. J. S. Gibbons points out some of the changes which 

 have taken place in the method pursued, as well as in the breed 

 of hounds, and after discussing the best size for a harrier — the 

 limit of height being placed between 18 in. and 21 in. — and the 

 easiest way of securing a level pack of hounds (p. 203), mentions 

 " a few points which may be borne in mind by a young hunts- 



