The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1905-01-07
WAR; TIME SPORT IN RUSSIA
Country Gentlemen Hold Fox Hunts
on Their Estates Near
Moscow.

although the calling out of the re-
serves had made some reductions III
the staff OF household and farm sery-
ants on the estate that | visited last
August in Russia" said a young New
Yorker on his return from abroad, ac-
cording to the New York Sun, Il met
with the same hospitality and found
every other condition about the same
as when | was there the year before,
when war with Japan was the last
thing expected.
THE estate was some 200 miles
from Moscow and the life seemed to
me much like what it must have been
in the south before the rebellion, the
country houses being maintained on a
large and semi-aristocratic scale, and
lying about Is or 90 miles apart in the
center of great expanses of titled land.
My object was to get some hunting in
the Russian style and had plenty of
novel and exciting sport.
1T was something in the order OF
English fox hunting, for the sports
men are mounted and the quarry is
run down by dogs, the guns not being
in use at all. There was plenty of
hard riding that tested the jumping
abilities of the horses, but no regular
fences as in England. We hunted
foxes and hares, for the greatest sport
Of the Russian country gentleman,
wolf hunting, may only be had in the
cold months.
The hunting was on broad stretches
of grass land, resembling the western
rrairies with here and there a patch
of woods as coverts. Three or four
made up each hunting party and we
would take places at intervals apart
about the covert
"A mounted keeper stayed with each
sportsman, holding three wolf hounds
on a leash. Other keepers on foot.
with pack of fox hounds, went
through the woods to drive out the
game.
Wolf hounds hunt only by sight
and the fun would begin when a fox
or hare broke from. the covert to
make dash across the prairie to the
next woods. perhaps two or three
miles off. The wolf hounds would
catch sight of the quarry and strain
ct the leash, but the keeper would
hold them until the flying animal got a
good start.
Then If the game should be hidden
In the grass, the wolf hounds would
zigzag like flashes of lightning until
they set eyes on it, when desperate
race would ensue. with the fox or hare
doubling when hard pressed and the
hounds darling along in gigantic leaps
with the speed of racing automobiles.
The prettiest sight imaginable is to
see a huge wolf hound. when first
slipped, spring up in the air far high
err than horse and rider, to get a line
on the game
Poised in the air, they suggest big
flying squirrels. and they mount and
descend as lightly. Although in the
air for only an instant. they have such
Keen eyesight that the fitting and
dlsky foxes or hares are at once picked
ont, and, giving tongue with bell
like barl1s, the team of hounds is OFF
in chase.
Once run down, the rider pelting
after the hounds sometimes for 90
minutes or half an hour. one snap of
the jaws ends the life of fox or hare.
The wolf hounds do not mangle or
bother with the dead game and are
soon again on the leash. ready for an
other dash. The wolf hound will run
down western coyote. so it can be
imagined how fast they get over the
ground in their native country"