44 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. 13, 1912. 
Coursing Hares in Australia 
By AUSTRALIS 
H ares are not indigenous to Australia. They 
were first introduced to the State of 
Victoria about fifty years ago, but they 
found the country and climate so much to their 
liking that they increased at a great rate. Now 
they are very common all over the southeast of 
Australia and are found in every State e.xcept 
Westralia. In Victoria they are so numerous in 
some parts as to become a pest. They do a lot 
of damage to the growing cereal crops, and 
farmers organize shooting drives. At these 
drives it is common to shoot up to 300 hares 
in one day. 
It is apparent, then, that with the large areas 
of open and sparsely settled territory that we 
have, coursing would inevitably become a favorite 
sport. This is the case in both Victoria and New 
South Wales, and to a lesser extent in Tasmania 
and Queensland. Victoria, however, is the home 
of the sport. Here we have coursing clubs in 
every district, while every large town has its 
plumpton, where hares are kept and coursed in 
large inclosures. Open coursing, however, is by 
far the most popular form of the sport, and it 
is carried on under ideal, natural conditions. A 
good club usually has the right to course over 
five or six large sheep stations (ranches) where 
paddocks of i 000 acres each are often available. 
These paddocks have very short grass on them, 
owing to the presence of the sheep, but they are 
always more or less thickly dotted with tussocks 
—bunches of tall, coarse grass—in which the 
hares make their “forms'’ or “seats.” At these 
meetings the coursing is conducted in a simple 
but effective manner. All present, whether in 
vehicles, on horseback, or on foot, are formed 
into line, and beat up and down the paddock in 
regular strips until the whole has been gone over. 
About fifty yards in front is the slipper with the 
two hounds and the judge on horseback. The 
whole cortege moves forward steadily until a 
hare is roused. Then all, except the slipper and 
the judge, halt. The hounds are let go and the 
judge follows them. At the end of the course 
when the hare either is caught or escapes, the 
signal is given, and the crowd moves on. On 
good hare country as many as fourty courses 
can be obtained in a day in this manner, but the 
average is between twenty and twenty-five, and 
the coursing to finish one stake usually extends 
over two-, and sometimes over three, days. The 
hares, being left to their natural conditions, are 
of course wild and strong, and in the big ma¬ 
jority of cases they get away unscathed. Usually 
there are large plantations of trees on these big 
estates, and belts of long marshy grass, and the 
hares naturally make for these refuges. The 
coursing is of course of the highest order, and 
as the country is level plain, with no timber 
(other than the isolated plantations referred to) 
the spectators obtain a splendid view of the 
sport. 
In some districts the hares are beaten out of 
coverts on to open paddocks, much like most of 
the English coursing. In these instances the 
help of a body of from twenty to thirty horse¬ 
men is utilized. The horsemen enter the coverts, 
which are usually wide belts of tussock grass, 
two to three feet high, of natural growth, and 
with no trees or bushes among it. The horse¬ 
men ride steadily forward, cracking whips, while 
the slipper and judge are out in the open on 
the opposite side with the crowd on a handy 
rise close by. Presumably a hare darts out of 
the cover to make for a similar belt perhaps a 
mile away. The horsemen ■ stop at once and re¬ 
main like statues until the course is over, and 
the fresh dogs placed in the slips. Then the pro¬ 
cess is repeated. The coursing takes place in 
the wide, open, short-grassed area between the 
coverts. This is always several hundred acres 
in area. On the principal coursing ground in 
Western Victoria it is, in fact, 1,000 acres in 
area. This affords a splendid coursing ground, 
and the trials between puss and her pursuers are 
always truly run. Two highly trained grey¬ 
hounds would a priori be expected to catch any 
hare in open country. The hound is usually much 
faster than the hare, and the two hounds when 
slipped, though the hare is given up to 300 yards 
law occasionally, rarely fail to reach the hare 
long before she gets to cover. The hare’s mar¬ 
velous aptitude at doubling and twisting, how¬ 
ever, allows her to baffle even the fastest and 
cleverest dogs. The average percentage of hares 
caught in open coursing is seldom more than one 
in five, and I have- seen twenty successive hares 
escape. Even where no cover, in which to es¬ 
cape, is available, the hare sometimes beats the 
hounds. Only a few days ago I was at a cours¬ 
ing meeting and saw two hounds and a hare 
both run to a standstill. The hounds at last 
lay down exhausted; the hare, about fifty yards 
in advance, did the same. When the owners of 
the hounds came up to catch their dogs, the hare 
got up again and went slowly away. But I have 
seen a hard run hare lie down and die and the 
hounds also collapse occasionally in the same 
way. 
The principal stakes are for sixty-four dogs, 
but there are several for thirty-two dogs, while 
in many instances unlimited entries are accepted. 
In these latter cases, however, the entries rarely 
exceed sixty, though I have been at a meeting 
when ninety-one dogs competed. The courses 
last from a fraction of a minute (with a weak 
hare) to three and four minutes. A good aver¬ 
age course would occupy a little over two 
minutes. To get right through a sixty-four dog 
stake the winner and runner-up have to run six 
times in two days. It is thus obvious that 
stamina and determination are two important 
requisites in the dogs. Open coursers breed for 
this object, and the dogs running nowadays are 
almost all game and persistent. It is rare to 
see a hound, no matter how long the course may 
be, stop running while the hare is in sight, un¬ 
less he fails through sheer exhaustion. 
Part of the popularity of open coursing is due 
to its healthy surroundings. Our winter—which 
is the coursing season—is so mild that the cours¬ 
ing, except when it is raining, is always enjoy¬ 
able. We have no ice nor snow and frost is 
rare. The wind is sometimes cold, but a good 
wrap keeps it out. So women and children are 
common among the followers at many meetings. 
The ride in the open air creates an unusual appe¬ 
tite, and this is provided for by an al fresco 
lunch at mid-day. Usually this is held in the 
lee of a big plantation of trees, where kettles and 
billies are boiled and tea is made. 
Coursing usual'y occupies the whole of the 
day. A start is made at either nine in the morn¬ 
ing or half past nine at the latest, and it is rarely 
over before five. Sometimes if hares are scarce, 
it does ngt finish until darkness sets in. Recently 
I was at a meeting when the last pair of dogs 
were slipped after six. It was twilight, the sun 
was long down and the dogs and the judge could 
hardly be seen in the gathering dusk. 
On these wide, open, lonely paddocks there is 
always a lot to be seen besides the actual cours¬ 
ing. Wild birds, especially ducks, plovers, and 
other waders are plentiful. There is always the 
possible excitement of a snake. I saw two veno¬ 
mous blacksnakes killed recently at a meeting. 
Toward the close of winter the wild flowers and 
shrubs are in bloom and our famous wattle 
(acacia) is a mass of golden blossom, flinging 
its scent far and wide on the breeze. It is no 
wonder, therefore, that coursing is a popular 
sport and promises long to continue so. 
New Publications. 
A Winter Sport Book, by Reginald Cleaver. 
Decorated cloth, quarto, 68 pages and 21 
full page plates, $1.50 net. New York, The 
Macmillan Company. 
“Skiing,” says Sir H. Lunn, who contributes 
a chapter on winter sport in Switzerland, “was 
unknown there until about 1895. The first per¬ 
son I ever saw skiing in Switzerland was Conan 
Doyle, at Davos, and he had, of course, brought 
the art from Norway. He was one of the 
earliest ski runners. Now every postman de¬ 
livers his letters on ski in the winter.” The 
sport has become tremendously popular, and the 
artist-author, possessed as he is of a keen sense 
of humor, has given, with pen and pencil, a 
vivid description of the benefits of skiing, ski¬ 
joring, skating, tobogganing and just loafing in 
the snow-clad mountains in winter. But while 
his narrative is largely humorous, and the beau¬ 
tiful sketches whol y so, there is lacking that 
coarseness which often mars books of this sort. 
One who reads the book cannot repress a keen 
desire to see the Swiss Alps in winter, where 
vigorous exercise is necessary outdoors, and 
even old fellows, little given to frivolity at home, 
tumble about in snowdrifts and enjoy them¬ 
selves like children; returning to their homes 
slimmer by far, rugged, the cobwebs blown out 
of their brains, ready to begin life anew. No 
wonder people travel across the continent to ski 
and coast at Davos! 
Books Received: “The Sport of Shooting,” 
by Owen Jones; Longmans, Green & Co. “The 
Compleat Angler,” by Izaak Walton; Hodder & 
Stoughton. “Thoughts on Hunting,” by Peter 
Beckford; Hodder & Stoughton. “Exercise and 
Health,” by Woods Hutchinson; Outing. “Caza 
Mexicana,” by Carlos M. Lopez and Carlos 
Lopez; Mexico City, C. Bouret. “The Book of 
the Tarpon,” by A. W. Dimock; Outing. “The 
Encyclopaedia of Sports and Games,” three 
volumes, edited by the Earl of Suffolk and 
Berkshire; Lippincott. 
