THE POVERTY BAY HOUNDS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17237, 17 April 1930, Page 3

THE POVERTY BAY HOUNDS

(By "Snaffles.")

With the abnormally dry weather, scent has been practically non-existent after sun-up, but with the overnight dew hounds have been able to put in one or two early mornings on the hills. between daylight and 8.30 o'clock, but it has been impossible to hunt after 9 a.m. at latest.

On Tuesday, April 8, the hounds put in two hours' very useful work on 'Messrs. Scott and Telford's hill country at The Willows, hunting; one hare steadily for about, three-quarters of an hour before running up to view and killing her in the open. On the way home a hare jumped up light iii front of the hounds, and they raced her 'by the fir dump across the strip of flats up to the bush reserve at the boundary, and after a roosting half-hour in the sun, with fresh hares leaving the bush in all directions, they were at last collected on Mr- H. H. Shanks' flats at Fairfield-

Saturday last provided a betterscenting morning, when it was not necessary to leave kennels until 6.30 a.m., as thero was a damp Irish mist falling and a. much cooler atmosphere generally. The first two hares, after running a good extent of hill country, found sanctuarv across the road in the bottom, where hounds were stopped from prohibited country. A good hare' was then found about the centre of Mr. Reynolds' block, and hounds raced her along at a rare bat up .and down the gullies and hills and over the bigi paspaluin flats, turning short loft-handed at Graham's road, crossing the' creek and running her up the steep face opjwsite with a great cry. How "wonderful the echoes sound in the hills in the early morning, when every hound's note is multiplied a hundredfold, and a single blast af the horn rovorberates for a couple of minutes round the hill-tops! Hounds raced her along with such a cry that the steep faces afforded her no relief, and faster still they rattled her down again—across the flats and up through the rushes of the centre gully, where she came out pointing for the shepherd's house, but swinging lefthanded along the bottom fence line by the road-side Hats for the full circle of the foot of the hills. Here, unfortunatelv, hounds divided, the body of the pack "rattling the fresh hare away over the road, with the whipper-in in attendance to stop them, whilst the huntsman carried on on the line of Hie hunted hare with two couples of hounds, having viewed her just about dead beat in the rushes half a mile up in the hills. The bodv of the pack being ultimately brought buck to join forces with the others, they killed her right up at the head of the gully,' after a strenuous hunt of an hour, during most of which time hounds were running at a great pace. Tuesday saw us once more at 'I he Willows,'and with the country drier than ever, hounds were reduced to slow hunting on a scent so bad' that thev 'could not own to a line three minutes' old. They proved, however, that they can hunt as well as run, and with the sun "red hot" by 7 a.m. they persevered on a hare for an hour and a half, and met with the worst luck possible at the end of that. time. They hunted her up to view well beaten, and she only beat th/uu to the rushes on the flats by two or three yards, the leading behind gaiiting on her at every stride, ,ind clainpod down so tight that the minutest search for her whereabouts moved unavailing With an almost tropical sun. and dense swarms of sand flies, hounds were called away and taken home.