2. Do you subscribe to the opinion that a heavy hare has no scent?
3. Have you known in your experience heavy hares to be either run or chopped by hounds?
Among the replies sent was the following from Mr. George Race (of Road Farm, Biggleswade), than whom no one was more qualified to give an opinion, he having been M.H. for seventy years:
“Dear Sir,—In answer to your questions I can only tell you I do not consider it advisable to fix any date for discontinuing hare hunting; and for this reason. In the south of England hares get heavy two or three weeks earlier than they do in the north, and also in an extensive country well stocked with hares you can of course go on longer than in a small country not well stocked.
As to the second question I am quite sure that a heavy hare emits little or no scent.
As to your last question, I certainly have known heavy hares chopped by hounds and also run by hounds.”
My own letter written from the High Peak country at that time was as follows, viz.:
“Dear Sir,—In reply to your letter and the special questions:
1. I am not certain that a fixed date for closing the hare-hunting season is advisable. There is no doubt that in some countries such as this hunting can be carried on a week or two later than in many others. If a date were fixed I agree that the middle (16th) of March would be the best date, all things considered, though it would not be early enough to obviate the occasional killing of heavy does.