Boys' Own Book Author:William Clarke Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HARE AND HOUNDS. Choose among your playfellows one who is swift of foot and ready in resource to take the part of the hare ; and then, when you are all assemb... more »led, the game proceeds in the following manner : The hare, who provides himself with a pocketful of paper cuttings, has ten minutes' law given him, and away he starts. As soon as he is some distance from the hounds, he drops the paper cuttings here and there in his course, as a guide to the hounds. The paper cuttings are technically called "the scent." At the expiration of the term allowed for law, the hounds follow, at the top of their speed, in the direction indicated by the scent; and the game is over when the hare is finally caught,—which, if he be active and ingenious, may take an hour or more. It is usual to elect a huntsman and whipper-in from among the fastest runners. These direct the hunt, call together the hounds, and generally superintend the arrangements. Sometimes the hare is provided with a horn, which he blows when he considers he is far enough from his pursuers. The huntsman, too, generally carries a white flag, and the whipper-in a red one ; and when the scent is struck, off they all go, till they either find the hare, or proclaim him lost. It is, in this case, the huntsman's part to seek the trail of the hare, while the whipper-in keeps his hounds well together till the track is refound. Then Tally ho I and follow the white flag, wherever it goes, till the hare is fairly run to earth. If a long course be token by the hare, it is as well that he should provide himself with a pocket compass, or some other means of finding his way back to the starting place. HUNT THE STAG. This game differs only from the last in the fact that the stag is in sight of the hounds, instead of being hunted by scent—that is...« less