He then apologizes to "his brother HARE-HUNTERS for holding the sport so cheap, not wishing to offend; alluding more relatively to his own particular situation in a country where hare-hunting is so bad, that it is more extraordinary he should have persevered in it so long, than he should have forsaken it then." Adding, "how much he respects hunting in whatever shape it appears; that it is a manly and a wholesome exercise, and seems by nature designed to be the amusement of a Briton." He is of opinion that more than twenty couple of hounds should never be brought into the field; supposing it difficult for a greater number to run well together; and a pack of harriers can never be complete who do not. He thinks the fewer hounds you have, the less you soil the ground, which sometimes proves a hindrance to the chase.
Custom has greatly varied in the practice of HARE-HUNTING during the last thirty years: at that time the hounds left the kennel at day-light, _took trail_ upon being _thrown off_, and soon went up to their GAME; which having the pleasure to find by their own instinctive sagacity, they pursued with the more determined alacrity: a brace or leash of hares were then killed, and the sport of the day concluded, by the hour it is now _the fashion_ for the company to take the field. As the _trail_ of a hare lays both partially and imperfectly when it gets late in the day, so the difficulty of _finding_ is increased, in proportion to the lateness of the hour at which the hounds are thrown off; hence it is that HARE-FINDERS, so little known at that time, are now become so truly instrumental to the sport of the day.
Although their services are welcome to the eager and expectant sportsman, yet it is on all hands admitted, they are prejudicial to the discipline of hounds; for having such assistance, they become habitually _idle_, and individually _wild_: expecting the game to be readily found for them, they become totally indifferent to the task of finding it themselves. HOUNDS of this description know the hare-finder as well as they know the HUNTSMAN, and will not only, upon sight, set off to meet him, but have eternally their heads thrown up in the air, in expectation of a view HOLLOA!