The so-called Harrier of to-day in most externals is a facsimile of the Foxhound. The "large and bagging lippes" of the days of Caius, with the attendant abundance of dewlap, have been bred out; the neck should be long and hairy, rising with a gradual swell from the shoulders, which must be well placed, sloping back, and clothed with muscle; the fore arms strong, elbows well let down, and in a straight line with the body; the fore legs perfectly straight, large of bone; neat strong ankles, and a foot round, firm, and close - the knuckles arched, but not immoderately so, the claws strong, and the sole firm and hard. The chest must be capacious; the back broad and strong, lined with hard muscle; the ribs, especially the back ones, well let down; the loin deep, and, like the hindquarters, very strong; the thighs very muscular; clean hocks, without a suspicion of leaning in towards each other, and the leg from the hock down should be short and strong; the stern must be thick at the setting, and gradually tapering to the point, well covered with hair, without being bushy, and carried gaily, and almost straight. The whole build of the Harrier is most symmetrical; there should be, literally, no waste about him. In texture the coat should be moderately fine, very dense, and the colour various - black, white and tan, blue mottles, black and tan, badger pied, hare pied, and a variety of combinations, in which the colours are often very beautifully blended. Delicacy of scent and perseverance are essential qualities in the Harrier, and the tongue should be rich and melodious.

The Welsh Harrier is still to be met with. This is a rough or shag-haired hound, more resembling the Otterhound than our modern Harrier, in shape as well as in coat. He is much smaller than the Otter-hound, but may be used for otter-hunting; in fact, like other varieties, he may be trained to hunt and to keep to any particular quarry he is entered to, and taught that to chase other game is riot.

In England there are (in 1902), according to the Field list of hounds, ninety-seven packs of Harriers kept; in Scotland, three packs only; and in Ireland, twenty-five packs; besides these, there are, in several parts of the country, what may be called scratch packs, the hounds being the individual property of, and kept by, men who join their forces for the mutual enjoyment of the pleasures of the chase.

Although so much weaker, numerically, than the Foxhounds, the above citations respecting Harriers show the aggregate to be very considerable; and when the vast amount of incidental expenditure connected with them is reckoned, the most exacting of political economists may be reasonably expected to pause and think before proceeding further in rendering the hare as extinct as the wolf in our country.

Perhaps it would not be out of place here to say a word or two on the subject of hare-hunting. The antiquity of this pastime cannot be called into question; and we have an undoubted allusion to it by Cervantes, in his "Don Quixote," wherein he says: "Mercy on me, what pleasure can you find, any of ye all, in killing a poor beast that never meant any harm?"

The question of Sancho Panza has, by all writers, down to a very recent period, received the stereotyped answer, that it is a noble recreation, most suitable for kings, princes, and the nobility, and also a healthy recreation for knights and gentlemen; and it was usually gently insinuated that the poor beast, whatever might be its name and nature, ought to be rather pleased than otherwise to be hunted to death by such very exalted beings and their hounds. Without inquiring too curiously into the ethics of hunting, we may venture on the truism that, as hunting, in one form or another, has existed since the dawn of our history, we may assume the predatory habit to be instinctive and inherited; even in these democratic days, when the pleasures of the chase are less restricted to the highly bred, there is no diminution in the ardour with which it is pursued. One thing we may congratulate ourselves upon is that, with a few exceptions, sport is carried out with less of cruelty, and more in a spirit of fair-play to the game. No one, nowadays, would advocate breaking the lower jaw of a badger in order that a young Terrier might, with safety to itself, learn to draw it. In like manner, the hunting of the hare is carried out on fairer terms than of yore, and, from the hare's point of view, must be very preferable to the prolonged agony of the cruel trap, or the lingering death from mortification or starvation consequent upon the sportsman's shot failing to reach a mortal part. We no longer resort to nets, gins, and pitfalls to aid the dogs that drive her to destruction; nor do we uncouple hounds, one after another, at points of 'vantage, after she has been roused, in order to make the more certain of her capture.

In ancient times not only the hare, but all beasts of chase, had to run the gauntlet of relays of hounds of various kinds, and also risk being driven into toils prepared for their capture. These practices have long ceased in England, if, indeed, the use of nets was ever in vogue here. The Mayster of Game says: "Men slee hares with Greyhoundes and with Rennynghoundes as in England; but ellis where they slee hem with smale pocketes and with pursenettes and wt smale nettes, with hair pipes and with long nettis, and with smale cordes that men casten where thei mak here brekyng of the smale twygges whan thei goon to hure pasture."

In the classic ages hounds and nets combined were used in hare-hunting, and Xenophon, writing 500 B.C., gives minutely-detailed accounts of the methods used, and of the dogs employed, which embraced many varieties of the type of our hounds; for the Greyhound, running by sight and outspeeding the hare, was unknown to him. It is pleasant to read that Xenophon, with the instincts of a true sportsman, forbade the nets and gins, set for the capture of the hare during the hunt, to be left standing when the game was over; that was, at least, a step towards fair-play to the quarry. From that very ancient date, down to the first part of the eighteenth century, it was the general custom to hunt hares in the early morning, so that what was considered a good day's sport, with, perhaps, several hares accounted for by the hounds, had been enjoyed, and an appetite for lunch obtained, by the hour sportsmen now think of turning out of the stableyard to go to the meet. The otter-hunters are almost the only sportsmen nowadays who can be called early risers. There was, above and beyond what has been suggested, a special advantage in hunting the hare in the early morning. The hare being, to a great extent, a night-feeder, goes to her seat, or form, in the morning, and, by taking the hounds out then, they, coming across her trail, have a stronger scent to lead them up to her seat than when she is sought in her form and then pursued. This fact, well known to every sportsman, was recognised and described by the old Greek hare-hunter, who says, according to Blaine's translation: "The scent of the hare going to her form lasts longer than that of her course when pursued. When she goes to her form, she goes slowly, often stopping; but her course, when pursued, is performed running; therefore, the ground is saturated with the one and not filled with the other." Anyone who has watched a hare in early morning, stealing leisurely along a fence, from her feeding-ground, to squat in the open, among rushes or tussocks of grass, or to shelter in the plantation, must have noticed the easy-going style, apparently unconscious of surroundings, except when every now and again, on some hillock, she stops, with ears erect, to take a general survey, and make sure that there are no enemies near.