Page:The Hare.djvu/107

 CHAPTER I

SHOOTING

, in modern times and with modern appliances, the most common method of taking hares has been by shooting. By this means nineteen-twentieths of the hares annually realised in Great Britain are killed. The number of those taken by other means, exclusive of poaching, is small. In the great Waterloo Coursing Meeting itself under one hundred hares are killed, and the total number killed at all the coursing meetings of the kingdom would not reach the total destroyed only a few years ago on some of our great game-preserving manors. A few years ago, I may well say, for since the Ground Game Act of 1880 came into existence, not only have men ceased to make big bags of hares, but the animal itself has on many thousands of acres become absolutely extinct. Leaving out all questions of sport, it