All
coursing is cruel; a hare suffers the extremity of agony from the moment
when she hears the thud of the dogs' feet until she is whirled round and
shaken in those deadly jaws. I lay once amongst straggling furze while a
hare and two greyhounds rushed down towards me. Puss had travelled a
mile on a Suffolk marsh, and she was failing fast. As she neared me the
greyhounds made a violent effort, and the foremost one struck just
opposite my hiding-place. Never in my life have I seen such a picture of
agony; the poor little beast wrung herself sharp round with a
scream--such a scream!--and the dog only succeeded in snatching a
mouthful of fur. He lay down, and the hare hobbled into the cover. I
could see her tremble. The same sort of torture is inflicted when hares
are bundled out of an enclosure with the rapidity and precision of
machinery. There is a wild flurry, an agony of one minute or so, and all
is over.
The mystery of man's cruelty is inexplicable to me; I feel the mad
blood pouring hard when the quarry rushes away, and the snaky dogs dash
from the slips; no thought of pity enters my mind for a time because the
mysterious wild-man instinct possesses me, and so I suppose that the
primeval hunter is ignobly represented by the people who go to see
rabbit coursing.
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