It is about a hundred years since the fashion of late meets came into vogue, and the hunter's horn ceased to proclaim the morn in competition with shrill-voiced chanticleer. With this change, and to make the fun easy for feather-bed sportsmen, hare-finders were employed to mark down the seated game. Now the prevailing custom is to beat up the hare without such help, and the agreeable work of looking for and finding is only less than the more exciting pleasure of pursuit.

As, allowing for minor changes in the lapse of time, Beckford is still the head of all authorities, and his descriptions are generically true, we quote his remarks on hare-hunting - a sport, by the way, to which he was not partial, but took to as the best substitute for his favourite fox-hunting, because, as he declared, he could not ride along a turnpike road.

He formed his Harriers by a cross of large, slow-hunting Harriers and the little Fox-Beagle, holding that "the former were too dull, too heavy, and too slow; the latter too lively, too light, and too fleet." He adds: -

"As the trail of a hare lays both partially and imperfectly in proportion to the length of time elapsed since she went to her seat, so is the difficulty of finding increased in proportion to the late or early hour at which the hounds are thrown off; hence it is, that the attendants upon different packs, under the denomination of hare-finders, so very little known or required at that time, are now become so truly and unavoidably instrumental to the sport of the day. Although the services of these people are always welcome to the anxious and expectant sportsman, yet it is admitted, by every judicious and competent observer, they are exceedingly prejudicial to the good order and regular discipline of hounds; for, having occasionally such assistance, they become habitually indolent and progressively wild; the game being so frequently and easily found for them, they become individually and conjunctively indifferent to the trouble of finding it for themselves. Those who are accustomed to have their hares found sitting, know the hare-finders as well as they know the huntsman, and will not only, upon sight, set off to meet him, but have their heads eternally thrown up in the air in expectation of a view holloa! Packs of Harriers well managed and disciplined are quietly brought up to the place of meeting, and, when thrown off, a general silence should prevail, that every hound may be permitted to do his own work.

Those well bred and properly broke seldom stand in need of assistance; officious intrusions frequently do more harm than good. . . . Young sportsmen, like young hounds, are too much accustomed to babbling when newly entered; and often, by frivolous questions or obtrusive conversation, attract the attention of the hounds, and insure the silent curse or public reproach of the huntsman.

Those who keep Harriers vary considerably in their modes of hunting them, but the humane and liberal-minded never deviate from the consistency and strict impartiality of the chase. If the hare is found sitting, and the hounds are too near at hand, they should be immediately (and, as it were, accidentally) drawn off, to prevent her being chopped in her form; the hare should then be silently walked up by the individual who found her, or knows where she is seated, that she may be permitted to go off without alarm, at her own pace. The hounds should then be drawn quietly over the spot whence she started, where, being permitted to come calmly and unexpectedly upon the scent, they then go away with it in a style of uniformity, constituting what may be candidly considered the consistency of the chase."

It is of importance to the full enjoyment of the sport, whether coursing or hunting the hare, to let her steal away quietly, for, if she is hustled, being a timid creature, she is likely to double instead of giving a tolerably straight run, without which there is comparatively little enjoyment. It is in the nature of the hare to run more or less in circles, and to make ever and again for the home she has been driven from by her pursuers; and, when hard pressed, her instinct or reason often instructs her to betake herself for shelter to the midst of a flock of sheep, where, the ground being soiled by them, the effluvia from her own heated body may be overpowered by that of the sheep, and the hounds thereby baffled.

A long treatise would be necessary to do justice to the subject of hare-hunting, but the object here has been to convey to the uninitiated a general conception of the sport. No one, without practical experience, can ever be a hunting man, in the sense of fully understanding and enjoying the glories, the dangers, and the pleasures of the chase; and, as a stimulus to attain to that position, we give a graphic description of hare-hunting from Somer-ville's poem "The Chase":

Huntsman, take heed; they stop in full career.

Yon crowding flocks, that at a distance gaze,

Have haply soil'd the turf. See ! that old hound!

How busily he works, but dares not trust

His doubtful sense ; draw yet a wider ring.

Hark! now again the chorus fills. As bells,

Sally'd awhile, at once their peal renew,

And high in air the tuneful thunder rolls,

See how they toss, with animated rage

Recovering all they lost! That eager haste

Some doubling wile foreshows. Ah ! yet once more

They're check'd, hold back with speed - on either hand

They flourish round - e'en yet persist - ' Tis right,

Away they spring; the rustling stubbles bend

Beneath the driving storm. Now the poor chase

Begins to flag, to her last shifts reduced.

From brake to brake she flies, and visits all

Her well-known haunts, where once she rang'd secure,

With love and plenty blest. See! there she goes,

She reels along, and by her gait betrays

Her inward weakness. See ! how black she looks!

The sweat, that clogs th' obstructed pores, scarce leaves

A languid scent. And now in open view

See, see, she flies! each eager hound exerts

His utmost speed, and stretches every nerve;

How quick she turns! their gaping jaws eludes,

And yet a moment lives; 'till, round enclosed

By all the greedy pack, with infant screams

She yields her breath, and there reluctant dies.