The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-12-09
NEW ENGLAND FOX HUNTING
HOWI1 DIFFERS FROM THE CHASE
 IN OLD ENGLAND.
Hunters and Hounds in Action on tn HilIsides -IIow the Foxes Try To Baffie the Dogs, But Run in Front of the Hunters 'Guns-lntcrcsting storsei of the Sport.

| The New England and some others of | the northern states have a style of fox l hunting all their own. It is not the or | thodox and classic chase of England and ! in less degree of the southern states, but yields plenty of sport and is indulg- this vicinity. It IS nbt remarkable for style. The hunters do not wear red coats and ride bob-tailed, fence-junp- ing horses and the foxes are killed with good old shotgun instead of being torn
 to pieces by the hounds, but there are
 good and sufficient reasons for depart
 ing from the old customs of the arito-
 crats of England and the south. In
 the first place, horAgs couldn't follow
 the hounds through dur rugged hills; in
 the second, there aren't enough horses
 of that kind in this vicinity to make
 much of hunt. Moreover, the fox
 hounds in New England cannot ordina-
 rily catch and kill fox. And, lastly,
 the fox hunters of New England have
 right to do as they like, for fox Is an
 outlaw, the season is open the year
 round and if body wants to lie in
 wait for him with shotgun there is no good reason why he shouldn't.
 Fox hunting has been for many years
 a popular sport about Westfleld. The
 western Massachusetts Fox club, whose
 headuuarters are there, was formed about twelve years ago at Chester and now has membership of 215, with perhaps fifty foxhounds of various breeds and degrees of ability For the annual hunt sportsmen gather from Boston, Gloucester, Worcester, Hart ford Springfield and Pittsfield and way stations, and the whole countrywide de- fers business to the pleasure VI tramp ing the mountain with shotgun on the one chance in thousand-of knock ing over fox. The pelts are now worth about $4 each, but hunter who has been so fortunate as to kill fox in one of these annual hunts would turn up his nose at $25. Annual hunts are now held at Blandford, and there is q good deal of informal hunting going on round here all the time, The Worcester dis trict has even more hunting, parties go- ing out every day during the best sea- son, which is through the fall though foxes can be satisfactorily hunted pret-
 
 ty much all winter.
 The first days hunt at Westfield this year was begun in blinding snow- storm. uncomfortable for the hunters, but not particularly bad for the hunt ing. said the experts, except that the | wind carried away the noise of the pack | and there was difficulty in keeping track of the foxes. The hunters were lp before daylight and congreEated at , he center of the town at six o'clock, | where they embarked in busses and | ,upeies. and were driven, with the ,ounds in leash and filling every cor Ter of the vehicles, to the foot of Mont | ,omery mountain. The earlier in the ]av the hounds are loosed the better, or the scent is the fresher.
 Most of the dogs were let go in the ields at the foot or partly up the rise, while most of the hunters went on up he mountain toward the top of the idge There, in the shelterSof trees, tone walls, bushes or whatever else ffered. they prepared to wait for the OK to pass. Each hunter selects his wn position, which he does in accord nee with his own real or fancied of the habits of the fox. And a before long the hunters have picket q the ridge as closely as if they were he outposts of an army, The old hunt r is willing to bide his time and wait atiently hour after hour in the confi- ence that eventually the dogs will rive the fox past him. The novice -aits a while, finds his feet and hands citing terribly cold and his bottle be- ,ming empty, and hears the hounds wing tongue furiouslN a mile away yer the hill and decides to emigrate, ,ly to find, after trudging long way, lat the chase has doubled around and lat the flying fox and the roaring pack C re coming through the hunway that g ? has just left. The fox chooses runway and there | ' places his life in jeopardy through leer laziness. He can traverse any r ot n l u