Hare Coursing.
The method of hunting without the assistance of foxhounds is called field hunting. The hunters, mounted in the ordinary manner and with their leashes of borzoi spread out perhaps 200 yards apart in a long string across the open country, advance at a walk or a slow trot in a half-moon shape skirmish line, and are thus able to cover a broad expanse of territory where game may be hiding. It has been suggested that this method of hunting might be suitable for our conditions in the West where our coursing dogs now run in a pack covering a comparatively small territory and unnecessarily tiring themselves.
In the winter when the snow covers the ground to a depth of several feet and it is reported that there have been seen in such and such a grove a family of wolves, the borzoi are taken in a low sledge, arranged with a blanket screen, to a position near the runway which the wolves are liable to use in passing from one covert to another. Foxhounds or beaters are sent into the grove, the wolf is driven forth and when well in the open, the blanket screen on the sledge is drawn aside, the borzoi slipped and the almost death-like stillness of the snow waste is disturbed by the wild rush of the dashing bodies and flying snow.
An amusing anecdote is recorded by one of the best known hunters in Russia,
of how a few years ago he had
slipped his borzoi on a great, grey wolf that had got a good start down
a roadway leading to
a neighboring
estate. It happened that the owner was out strolling with a lady of his
household on the very roadway by which the wolf was attempting to make
his escape. 'Noblesse oblige," was quite forgotten. The Prince, for such
he was, on seeing the wild on rush of the wolf, hounds and leaping horses,
threw himself headlong into the snowbank at one side of the road while
his consort leaped unattended into a snow filled ditch on the other. Past
fled the hunt, the hunters more hilarious than polite in their mirth for
all that could be seen of his lordship were his lower limbs kicking violently
in the snowbank. On dashed the wolf; entering the driveway of the mansion
he leaped the barrier of the garden and in his wild search for shelter
crashed through the long French windows of the library, followed pell mell
by the hounds.
The first Russian wolfhounds were seen in America about 15 years ago, and have since that time been steadily increasing in popularity in spite of their being greatly misunderstood under the erroneous impression that they
A Hunting Morn Near Perchina-The Central Mounted Figure is M. Waltzoff.
15.
Copyright Rey and Yvonne McGehee 2000.