eight in the morning
Women came on horseback and in buggies ; many carried rattles or horns and tins to make a noise . A number of the buggies trailed a string of old cans or tied laths to scrape on the wheel-spokes , and thus add no little to the deafening clatter of the drive . As Rabbits have marvellously sensitive hearing , a noise that is distracting to mankind , is likely to prove bewildering to them . The weather was right , and at eight in the morning the word to advance was given . The line was about five miles long at first , and there was a man or a boy every thirty or forty yards . The buggies and riders kept perforce almost entirely to the roads ; but the beaters were supposed , as a point of honor , to face everything , and keep the front unbroken . The advance was roughly in three sides of a square .