And what of Champion? Or should I say of the Champions, for the family now consists of four? Champion married in 1903, and the family besides himself are his wife, than who no kinder or more courteous woman ever existed, his son George, who with the blood of so many huntsmen in his veins is certain to prove his worth, and who is already showing that he is inheriting his father’s knowledge and love of hounds, and his five-year-old daughter Marjory, to whom the hounds are always ready to lend their backs for a ride. Those readers who have ever had the pleasure of knowing Champion will be pleased to hear that he ran third in the veterans’ race at the police sports at Aylesbury, and could have been first, only he went for the third prize, a spacious and very comfortable walnut chair. During this Michaelmas Half, season 1921-2, the hounds have shown very fair sport, in spite of an execrable scent on dry hard land, and have killed eleven hares. Thanks to the very kind loan of six couples of hounds by Capt. E. C. Portman, the pack is well up to the standard of last year’s, and every one can look forward with optimism to the future. How can I end this history more appropriately than by the words which have closed every season’s beagling in the Journal Book for the last twenty years, and portray the hopes of any one who has ever hunted with the E.C.H.? _FLOREANT CANES ETONENSES._ [Illustration: THE KILL.] [Illustration: MAP OF COUNTRY HUNTED BY E.C.H.] [Illustration] PART II. CHAPTER I. HARES. _By Major Arthur T. Fisher._ It would be indeed regrettable if our British hare were exterminated; yet, some thirty years ago, such seemed by no means impossible, for our stock was so rapidly diminishing that it was with difficulty that the Committee of some coursing meetings could make their arrangements. But since that time normal conditions have returned, and hares are to-day apparently as abundant as before the passing of the Ground Game Act. Hares afford a large amount of sport, to say nothing of their value as most excellent food. To the lovers of Natural History their habits and ways are full of interest. For several years my home was situated at the foot of the Wiltshire Downs, where I rented a long strip of shooting, some two or three miles in length, and so had ample opportunity afforded me of studying their habits. It seems that we have at least some four distinct varieties of the hare in Britain. First, there is the comparatively small hare of the Midlands, perhaps more valuable for its edible qualities than for sport; the marsh hare, better for sport than table; the large long leggy hare of the Downlands, and the blue mountain hare of Scotland, which turns nearly to quite white in winter.