LETTER X
I thought that I had been writing all this time to a fox-hunter; and hitherto my Letters have had no other object. I now receive a letter from you, full of questions about hare-hunting; to all of which you expect an answer. I must tell you, at the same time, that, though I kept harriers many years, it was not my intention, if you had not asked it, to have written on the subject. By inclination I was never a hare-hunter: I followed this diversion more for air and exercise than for amusement; and if I could have persuaded myself to ride on the turnpike-road to the three-mile stone, and back again, I should have thought that I had had no need of a pack of harriers. Excuse me, brother hare-hunters! I mean not to offend; I speak but relatively to my own particular situation in the country, where hare-hunting is so bad, that it is more extraordinary that I should have persevered in it so long, than that I should forsake it now. I respect hunting in whatever shape it appears: it is a manly and a wholesome exercise, and seems by Nature designed to be the amusement of a Briton.
You ask, How many hounds a pack of harriers should consist of? and, What kind of hound is best suited to that diversion? You should never exceed twenty couple in the field: it might be difficult to get a greater number to run well together; and a pack of harriers cannot be complete if they do not:1 besides, the fewer hounds you have, the less you foil the ground, which you otherwise would find a great hindrance to your hunting. Your other question is not easily answered. The hounds, I think, most likely to show you sport, are between the large slow-hunting harrier and the little fox-beagle:2 the former are too dull, too heavy, and too slow; the latter too lively, too light, and too fleet.3 The first species, it is true, have most excellent noses, and, I make no doubt, will kill their game at last if the day be long enough; but you know the days are short in winter, and it is bad hunting in the dark: the other, on the contrary, fling and dash, and are all alive; but every cold blast affects them; and if your country be deep and wet, it is not impossible that some of them may be drowned. My hounds were a cross of both these kinds, in which it was my endeavour to get as much bone and strength in as small a compass as possible. It was a difficult undertaking. I bred many years, and an infinity of hounds, before I could get what I wanted: I at last had the pleasure to see them very handsome; small, yet bony; they ran remarkably well together; ran fast enough; had all the alacrity that you could desire; and would hunt the coldest scent. When they were thus perfect, I did as many others do—I parted with them.
It may be necessary to unsay (now that I am turned hare-hunter again) many things that I have been saying as a fox-hunter; as I hardly know any two things of the same genus (if I may be allowed the expression) that differ so entirely. What I said in a former Letter, about the huntsman and whipper-in, is in the number. As to the huntsman, he should not be young: I should, most certainly, prefer one, as the French call it, d’un certain âge, as he is to be quiet and patient; for patience, he should be a very Grizzle; and the more quiet he is, the better. He should have infinite perseverance; for a hare should never be given up while it is possible to hunt her: she is sure to stop, and therefore may always be recovered. Were it usual to attend to the breed of our huntsman as well as to that of our hounds, I know no family that would furnish a better cross than that of the silent gentleman mentioned by the Spectator: a female of his line, crossed with a knowing huntsman, would probably produce a perfect hare-hunter.
The whipper-in also has little to do with him whom I before described: yet he may be like the second whipper-in to a pack of fox-hounds; the stable-boy who is to follow the huntsman: but I would have him still more confined, for he should not dare even to stop a hound or smack a whip, without the huntsman’s order. Much noise and rattle is directly contrary to the first principles of hare-hunting, which is, to be perfectly quiet, and to let your hounds alone. I have seen few hounds so good as town packs, that have no professed huntsman to follow them. If they have no one to assist them, they have at the same time no one to interrupt them; which, I believe, for this kind of hunting is still more essential. I should, however, mention a fault that I have observed, and which such hounds must of necessity sometimes be guilty of; that is, running back the heel.4 Hounds are naturally fond of scent; if they cannot carry it forward, they will turn, and hunt it back again: hounds that are left to themselves, make a fault of this; and it is, I think, the only one they commonly have. Though it be certainly best to let your hounds alone, and thereby to give as much scope to their natural instinct as you can; yet, in this particular instance, you should check it mildly; for, as it is almost an invariable rule in all hunting to make the head good, you should encourage them to try forward first; which may be done without taking them off their noses, or without the least prejudice to their hunting. If trying forward should not succeed, they may then be suffered to try back again, which you will find them all ready enough to do; for they are sensible how far they brought the scent, and where they left it. The love of scent is natural to them, and they have infinitely more sagacity in it than we ought to pretend to: I have no doubt that they often think us very obstinate, and very foolish.
Harriers, to be good, like all other hounds, must be kept to their own game: if you run fox with them, you spoil them. Hounds cannot be perfect, unless used to one scent, and one style of hunting. Harriers run fox in so different a style from hare, that it is of great disservice to them when they return to hare again: it makes them wild, and teaches them to skirt. The high scent which a fox leaves, the straightness of his running, the eagerness of the pursuit, and the noise that generally accompanies it, all contribute to spoil a harrier.
I hope you agree with me, that it is a fault in a pack of harriers to go too fast; for a hare is a little timorous animal, which we cannot help feeling some compassion for at the very time when we are pursuing her destruction: we should give scope to all her little tricks, nor kill her foully, and overmatched.5 Instinct instructs her to make a good defence, when not unfairly treated, and I will venture to say, that, as far as her own safety is concerned, she has more cunning than the fox, and makes many shifts to save her life far beyond all his artifice. Without doubt, you have often heard of hares, who, from the miraculous escapes they have made, have been thought witches; but, I believe, you never heard of a fox that had cunning enough to be thought a wizzard.
They who like to rise early, have amusement in seeing the hare trailed to her form. It is of great service to hounds: it also shows their goodness to the huntsman more than any other hunting, as it discovers to him those who have the most tender noses. But I confess I seldom judged it worth while to leave my bed a moment sooner on that account. I always thought hare-hunting should be taken as a ride, after breakfast, to get us an appetite to our dinner. If you make a serious business of it, you spoil it. Hare-finders, in this case, are necessary: it is agreeable to know where to go immediately for your diversion, and not beat about, for hours perhaps, before you find. It is more material with regard to the second hare than the first; for if you are warmed with your gallop, the waiting long in the cold afterwards is, I believe, as unwholesome as it is disagreeable. Whoever does not mind this, had better let his hounds find their own game: they will certainly hunt it with more spirit afterwards; and he will have a pleasure himself in expectation, which no certainty can ever give. Hare-finders make hounds idle: they also make them wild. Mine knew the men as well as I did myself; could see them almost as far; and would run, full cry, to meet them. Hare-finders are of one great use: they hinder your hounds from chopping hares, which they otherwise could not fail to do. I had in my pack one hound in particular, that was famous for it: he would challenge on a trail very late at noon, and had a good knack at chopping a hare afterwards: he was one that liked to go the shortest way to work; nor did he choose to take more trouble than was necessary. Is it not wonderful that the trail of a hare should lie after so many hours, when the scent of her dies away so soon?
Hares are said (I know not with what truth) to foresee a change of weather, and to seat themselves accordingly. This is, however, certain, that they are seldom found in places much exposed to the wind. In inclosures, they more frequently are found near to a hedge than in the middle of a field. They who make a profession of hare-finding (and a very advantageous one it is in some countries) are directed by the wind where to look for their game. With good eyes and nice observation, they are enabled to find them in any weather. You may make forms, and hares will sit in them. I have heard that it is a common practice with shepherds on the Wiltshire downs; and, by making them on the side of hills, they can tell at a distance off, whether there are hares in them or not. Without doubt, people frequently do not find hares from not knowing them in their forms. A gentleman coursing with his friends, was shown a hare that was found sitting. “Is that a hare?” he cried. “Then by Jove, I found two this morning as we rode along!”
Though the talent of hare-finding is certainly of use, and the money collected for it, when given to shepherds, is money well bestowed by a sportsman, as it tends to the preservation of his game—yet I think, that when it is indiscriminately given, hare-finders often are too well paid. I have known them frequently get more than a guinea for a single hare. I myself have paid five shillings in a morning, for hares found sitting. To make our companions pay dearly for their diversion, and oftentimes so much more than it is worth; to take from the pockets of men, who oftentimes can ill afford it, as much as would pay for a good dinner afterwards, is, in my opinion, an ungenerous custom; and this consideration induced me to collect but once, with my own hounds, for the hare-finders. The money was afterwards divided amongst them; and if they had less than half-a-crown each, I myself supplied the deficiency. An old miser who had paid his shilling, complained bitterly of it afterwards; and said, “He had been made to pay a shilling for twopennyworth of sport.”
When the game is found, you cannot be too quiet. The hare is an animal so very timorous, that she is frequently headed back, and your dogs are liable to over-run the scent at every instant. It is best, therefore, to keep a considerable way behind them, that they may have room to turn, as soon as they perceive they have lost the scent; and, if treated in this manner, they will seldom over-run it much. Your hounds, through the whole chase, should be left almost entirely to themselves; nor should they be hallooed much. When the hare doubles, they should hunt through those doubles; nor is a hare hunted fairly when hunted otherwise.6 They should follow her every step she takes, as well over greasy fallows as through flocks of sheep; nor should they ever be cast, but when nothing can be done without it. I know a gentleman, a pleasant sportsman, but a very irregular hare-hunter, who does not exactly follow the method here laid down. As his method is very extraordinary, I will relate it to you:—His hounds are large and fleet: they have at times hunted every thing; red deer, fallow deer, fox, and hare; and must in their nature have been most excellent; since, notwithstanding the variety of their game, they are still good. When a hare is found sitting, he seldom fails to give his hounds a view; and as the men all halloo, and make what noise they can, she is half frightened to death immediately. This done, he then sends his whipper-in to ride after her, with particular directions not to let her get out of his sight: and he has found out that this is the only proper use of a whipper-in. If they come to a piece of fallow, or a flock of sheep, the hounds are not suffered to hunt any longer, but are capped and hallooed as near to the hare as possible: by this time the poor devil is near her end, which the next view generally finishes; the strongest hare, in this manner, seldom standing twenty minutes. But my friend says, a hare is good eating, and he therefore thinks that he cannot kill too many of them. By what Martial says, I suppose he was of the same opinion:
| Inter quadrupedes gloria prima lepus. |
A-propos to eating them—I must tell you, that in the Encyclopédie, a book of universal knowledge, where, of course, I expected to find something on hunting, which it might be of service to you, as a sportsman, to know, I found the following advice about the dressing of a hare, which may be of use to your cook; and the regard I have for your health will not suffer me to conceal it from you:— “On mange le levraut rôti dans quelques provinces du royaume, en Gascogne et en Languedoc, par exemple, avec une sauce composée de vinaigre at de sucre, qui est mauvaise, malsaine en soi essentiellement, mais qui est surtout abominable pour tous ceux qui n’y sont pas accoutumés.” You, without doubt, therefore, will think yourself obliged to the authors of the Encyclopédie for their kind and friendly information.
Having heard of a small pack of beagles to be disposed of in Derbyshire, I sent my coachman (the person whom I could at that time best spare) to fetch them. It was a long journey, and, not having been used to hounds, he had some trouble in getting them along; besides which, as ill-luck would have it, they had not been out of the kennel for many weeks before, and were so riotous, that they ran after everything they saw: sheep, cur-dogs, and birds of all sorts, as well as hares and deer, I found, had been his amusement all the way along. However, he lost but one hound; and when I asked him what he thought of them, he said, “they could not fail of being good hounds, for they would hunt anything.”
In your answer to my last Letter, you ask, Of what service it can be to a huntsman to be a good groom? and, Whether I think he will hunt hounds the better for it? I wonder you did not rather ask, Why he should be cleanly? I should be more at a loss how to answer you. My huntsman has always the care of his own horses; I never yet knew one who did not think himself capable of it: it is for that reason I wish him to be a good groom.
You say, that you cannot see how a huntsman of genius can spoil your sport, or hurt your hounds. I will tell you how: by too much foul play he frequently will catch a fox before he is half tired; and by lifting his hounds too much, he will teach them to shuffle. An improper use of the one may spoil your sport; too frequent use of the other must hurt your hounds.
