18th-century rabbit hunts?

[George]

My favorite small game is the cottontail rabbit, I guess because of boyhood memories of teaching myself to hunt using them as the lessons. I'm an old man, now, and have hunted many kinds of small game in a lot of places, but there are still few moments in hunting which give me the simple, honest pleasure of beating a bunny to the draw when it pops out from underfoot in heavy trash. Not an easy job using a flintlock and working as your own dog, but I can think of few things I enjoy more when I fail at it.

So, in all my reading about hunting in the 18th century I have been on the alert for any references to rabbit hunting. I have found a couple which allude to it, such as saying a piece of land for sale has much game, including rabbits, for the hunting, or that a certain lost pointer dog would stand "perfectly staunch to a Partridge, Woodcock, or the Hare of this state". I've found only one which actually discusses rabbits on a hunt, though, and that one is from England and says shame on you if you shoot them. :haha:

Pteryplegia, or the Art of Shooting Flying, Markland, 1722:

HALLOO----HALLOO---See, see from yonder Furze
The Lurchers have alarm’d and started Puss!
Hold! What d’ye do? Sure you don’t mean to Fire!
Constrain that base, ungenerous Desire,
And let the Courser and the Huntsman share
Their just and proper Title to the Hare!
Let the poor Creature pass and have fair Play,
And fight the Prize of Life out her own Way.
The tracing Hound by Nature was designed
Both for the Use and Pleasure of Mankind;
Form’d for the Hare, the Hare too for the Hound:
In Enmity each to each other bound:
Then he who dares by diff’rent Means destroy
Than Nature meant, offends ”˜gainst Nature’s Law.

So, I'm looking for original references to actually hunting rabbits/hares in the 18th or early 19th century. I appreciate any pointers.

Spence

 

[Sean Gadhar]

About page 85.
http://www.archive.org/stream/haremacp00macp#page/n7/mode/2up

Hope that helps :wink:

 

[Britsmoothy]

Nice find Spence. Hare coursing was very big over here until very recently.
Coursing with long dogs is excellent sport. Done a little my self years ago :thumbsup:

B.

 

[Sean Gadhar]

About page`176 the book starts in on Beagling, I had no idea myself they were running the hounds to the kill & not gunning in the 1800s.
Before reading this I had always thought Beagles were a gunning breed.

The things ya learn if you'll just put your nose between two pages & get to reading. :wink:

 

[George]

Thanks, very interesting reading and a good link for my file. I'll be spending some time with that one. A bit late for my period of interest, though.

Spence

 

[BrownBear]

This has nothing to do with your region, but I think it's instructive about the range of possibilities for rabbit hunting. And it certainly dates back further than the era you're seeking. I suspect little was ever written about rabbit hunting in general because it was pretty "common," yet a key source of meat for folks of limited means.

I grew up in the Southwest where the local Indians wouldn't waste an arrow on a rabbit according to their oral histories. Instead they used throwing sticks resembling short boomerangs, but with the curve more towards the end away from the hand and no intention of comebacks. And I suspect in history, as today, rabbit hunting fell mostly to the kids.

Some of my best buds were from two Apache families, and they were a phenomenon with their throwing sticks. They'd take their "shots" at sitting cottontails or jacks, then the race was on if they missed. They'd retrieve their sticks in mid-stride and keep running and throwing. Got more rabbits that the rest of us using 22's put together, and their families ate a whole lot of rabbit. Not surprisingly, kids from those two families completely dominated the local track and field scene.

Rabbit chili, rabbit tamales, rabbit jerky, fried rabbit, rabbit burgers, rabbit meatloaf, even rabbit hotdogs. Yum.

 

[Patocazador]

Dispatching animals by means other than a gun or arrow was and is quite common in out-of-the-way places.
My dad and I wanted to get an African porcupine to mount when we were over there and when we pulled out our pistols to shoot one, the Bushman tracker stopped us and killed it with an irregular rock he picked up. The rock was angular and large but he cold cocked that porky from 15 yards with one throw.
On a Mexican duck hunt I winged a teal that came down about 10 yards from the dugout canoe and started swimming away. The Mexican guide with me took out a slingshot and a small rock and plunked him in the head. Believe me a teal's head is REAL small.



Make do with what you have.