HUNTING.

Nature has prepared many advantages and pleasures for the use of mankind, and given them the taste to enjoy them, and the sagacity to improve them; but of all the out-of-door amusements that have occupied the modern world, at least the male part of it, nothing has better stood the test of time than the noble diversion of hunting.

“Of all our fond diversions, A hunter’s is the best;

In spite of wars, and petty jars, That sport has stood the test.”

And why has it stood the test? Not merely because the passion for the chase is interwoven closely with our nature; not because it originated in necessity, therefore originated in nature; but because it has been encouraged and approved of by the very best authorities, and practised by the greatest men. It cannot now, then, be supposed to dread criticism, or require support; neither can any solid objections be raised against a reasonable enjoyment of the sports of the field in general, provided what ought to be the pleasing relaxation of a man’s leisure hours be not converted into the whole business of his life. But hunting, above all others, is a taste characteristically manly and appropriate to the gentlemen of Great Britain; and it has likewise another advantage over all other sports of the field, which adds much to its value in this land of liberty, and especially in the present age: it is a kind of Saturnalian amusement, in which the privileges of rank and fortune are laid aside, the best man in the chase being he who rides the best horse, and who is best skilled in the use he should make of his superiority.

But let us look a little into the origin of hunting, the encomiums passed upon it, and the advantages derived from it.

We shall commence with the sacred history itself, which describes the first warriors under the denomination of hunters; and not only did the passion for the chase form a kind of society between the dog, the horse, the falcon, and man, but Pliny is quite correct in saying that hunting was not only one of the first exercises of man, but that it gave rise to monarchical states. For example, Nimrod, the first king, who reigned at Babylon, devoted himself to hunting, and delivered his subjects from the savage beasts that desolated the country; and in the sequel, by making soldiers of his companions in the chase, employed them in extending his empire, and establishing his conquests. In fact, nothing in those days procured a man so much esteem as being an expert sportsman or hunter; and had not Nimrod been a sportsman, he would not have been a king. People submit themselves to government by force, as wild animals do, and not by choice; and he erected himself into a monarch by finding himself stronger than his neighbours. He taught the people to make up companies for the diese; and, after exercising them for this purpose in the first instance, he led them on by degrees to a social defence of one another, and thus laid the foundation of his authority and his kingdom. It is no wonder, then, that so many of the first kings or heroes of whom antiquity makes mention should be characterised as celebrated hunters, and destroyers of noxious animals; an employment prescribed in the Book of Moses, and deified in the theology of the Pagans. Bacchus is drawn by tigers, because he subdued them; Apollo obtained the laurels that encircle his brow, by killing the serpent Python; and Hercules got his lion’s skin by his exploits in the forest of Nemaea. Diana was worshipped in her temple, the finest the world ever saw, in honour of her skill in destroying noxious animals; even Venus herself took the field, and Adonis was killed in the chase. The Egyptians, also, in their most splendid ages, were much addicted to hunting; and it was the common exercise of the children educated in the court of Sesostris.

But there would be no end to these examples of the acknowledged benefits of the chase, on the manners and characters of nations. The ancient Persians considered hunting not only as a serious employment, but an excellent preparation for war, in which the same weapons were used as in the chase; and their renowned monarch, Cyrus, was the first sportsman of his day. With the Athenians the passion for the sports of the field was so strong, that Solon was obliged to restrain the ardour for hunting, to prevent the people neglecting the mechanic arts, which it was his wish they should cultivate; and the Lacedemonians, who were warriors by profession, cultivated hunting with incessant care. It was not only their ruling passion, but there is reason to believe they exercised in it the greatest skill; and, as we learn from Virgil, in his third Géorgie, they were celebrated for their breed of speedy dogs. But there is not a nation in wnich it has not been found necessary to restrain by laws the excessive love for the chase; so natural is it to man, and so apt to degenerate into a passion injurious both to health and to society.

One of the greatest compliments paid to the chase is, its having been considered as a theme worthy the pens of the ablest writers of the most refined periods of the world. Whilst Greece was the nursery and residence of every branch of polite literature, and of all the arts and sciences then known to mankind; whilst every study that depends on the powers of the imagination, or the faculties of the understanding, was there carried to the very summit of perfection; we find Xenophon composing his Kυvsj-ysr/xôř, treating of every description of field-sports. He, according with the custom of the times, opens the subject with fable, and tells us that hunting, which he calls the gift of the gods, and the use of dogs, originated with Apollo and Diana, and that the invention was made a present of to Chiron, who took pupils in the art, each of whom was, in his turn, honoured by the gods (αs ’ β 6sωv iτ ∣ μr i (hf). His real object, however, was to encourage in the youth of his country a taste for the pleasures of the chase, and other manly pastimes, as the best preparation for war, the∙senate, and the world. Whilst he condemns the effeminate man as shamefully useless to his country, he represents the well-trained sportsman as not only mighty in war, but ready to sacrifice his person and his wealth to the public good. As a preparation for war, and particularly the higher branches of the soldier’s profession, we need not the testimony of Xenophon; for our own experience has shown us, that, speaking generally, no man takes a view of a country, at first sight, with equal facility to a sportsman, particularly a sportsman who has been accustomed to follow hounds. Indeed, unless he have what is called in the field, “ a good eye to a country,” he cannot ride with judgment after hounds in our enclosed or woodland districts; and when the chase is concluded, it is surprising to witness the rapidity with which an experienced fox-hunter sees the points of a country in which he is a stranger, that must lead him towards his wished-for borne. With respect to the other advantages alluded to by Xenophon, he had very good authority for what he asserted of them. The [7:11:739]Olympic games were established by the Greeks for two distinct purposes: first, to inspire their youth with a love of glory, as well as a taste for manly and invigorating exercises, conducive to contempt of danger, and coolness when exposed to it; and, secondly, with a view of drawing together the leading men of the different states of Greece, which gave them an opportunity of deliberating upon matters of general concern. As regarded the other various occupations of life which a gentleman is called upon to fulfil and do honour to, we may remark, that an irreproachable moral character was a necessary qualification for a competitor at those games or sports. Drawing something like a parallel here, then, we may add, that neither is a sportsman in our own country esteemed, how skilful soever he may be, if his character be tainted with fraud; and we are not unmindful of the advantages derived from the mixture of society in the hunting-field, or of the many valuable and lasting friendships that may be dated from accidental meetings by the cover’s side. But Xenophon wrote in praise of hunting rather perhaps as a soldier than a philosopher, giving it as his opinion, that the exercise of the chase formed the best soldiers in the world; that it habituated men to cold, heat, and fatigue; that it kindled courage, elevated the soul, and invigorated the body; that it retarded the effects of age, and rendered the senses more acute; and, finally, that the pleasure it afforded was a sovereign remedy against all mental uneasiness; in which latter sentiment he is seconded by a modern author of celebrity, who says that “the chase fortifies the heart as well as the body.” Nor is Xenophon the only eminent soldier or philosopher of his renowned country who has written in commendation of hunting. Aristotle wrote a treatise on field-sports, by order of Alexander the Great; and Polybius, one of the greatest soldiers of any age, relates that Maximus restored discipline in the Roman legions, by often exercising them in hunting; and he even goes so far as to celebrate one individual sportsman, Ptolemy Epiphanes, for his dexterity in killing a wild bull. Amongst the poets of Greece, Oppian distinguished himself highly by his poems on hunting. So excellent, indeed, were they considered by his emperor, that he is said to have presented him with a piece of gold for every verse they contained, and thus they acquired the honourable appellation of “the golden verses of Oppian.” Several of the most splendid similes of Homer are taken from hounds in chase, and it is in the manly character of Achilles that we chiefly recognise him as his hero.

The Romans at one time discouraged hunting amongst the upper orders of society, from the fear of its becoming a passion which might divert them from their essential duties. But here they committed an error; for, aware or its beneficial effects in forming their people for war, they substituted public exhibitions of animals destroying each other in an amphitheatre, which could only have hardened the heart, without advantage to either body or mind. Yet we find many of their emperors encouraging hunting, and many of their best writers extolling it. The learned and polished Hadrian was so passionately addicted to hunting, and also to horses and dogs, that he erected monu-ínents to the memory of the latter, and built a city on the spot on which he had killed a wild boar, after a desperate encounter with him, and which he called by a word which, being interpreted, signifies Hadrian’s chase. Amongst the celebrated writers of the Augustan age, we may mention two, who, not being themselves sportsmen, could only have, made sporting a subject for their pens, from a sense of the benefits arising from it. Virgil makes his young Ascanius a sportsman as soon as he is able to sit his horse; and he also makes him, at a very early age, the first in the fight (primum bello), as he had been the first in the field. In the speech addressed to him by the bold Numanus, which cost that hero his life, we have the finest contrast of the evils of effeminate habits with the benefits of manly pursuits, that the pen of a satirist could produce. The words, 0 verae Phrygiae, neque enim Phryges ∕ “ Oh, worse than women in the shape of men,” convey the severest rebuke a nation could receive for having made themselves contemptible to their enemies, by the effects of an effeminate life, and pursuits unworthy of men; whereas the advantages of the manly exercises of youth are finely set forth in the vaunting exclamation of this hardy Rutulian. Neither is Horace behind his contemporary poet in his disgust of an effeminate youth. In the twenty-fourth ode of his third book, he beautifully contrasts those softening pleasures which emasculate the mind and enervate the body, with the opposite effects of manly sports and exercises; and, in his justly celebrated Epistle to Lollius, he recommends the chase, not only as a noble exercise, but as contributing to health and peace of mind. His Carmen Soeculare was also written in honour of manly exercises; and in another of his odes we find him upbraiding a young Roman for giving up the manly exercise of riding; and glancing at the destruction of Troy, and the feminine education of Achilles, seeming to insinuate, that effeminacy was likely to destroy the energies of his own countrymen, as it had those of others. That his apprehensions were not unfounded, a few centuries proved; for the Romans, after the conquest of Persia and other distant kingdoms, participating in their luxurious habits, became as easy a prey to the Goths and Vandals, as the Grecians and other nations had before been to themselves; and, in the decline of the republic, the few victories which they gained were achieved but by the terror of their name. Minor poets have also made sporting their theme. Gratius wrote a poem on coursing. He was contemporary with Ovid, and a sportsman, as the knowledge of his subject denotes. Nemesianus also, three centuries afterwards, wrote some poems on hunting, though they have not been so highly esteemed. But the sports of the field are alluded to by innumerable classic writers, and made the groundwork of their most beautiful allegories and fables, both in verse and prose; and perhaps, after all, the greatest compliment that can be paid to them, as well as the best answer to the assertion that any man can make a sportsman, is to be found in the latter department of literature. We allude to the letters of that accomplished country gentleman and scholar, Pliny the consul, in which he speaks of his prowess in the chase. In one addressed to Tacitus the historian, boasting of a famous day’s sport he had been enjoying, he also boasts of the good effect it had had on his mind, telling him that Minerva accompanied Diana on the hills; and in the eighteenth letter of the fifth book he goes a point beyond this: “As for myself,” says he to his friend Macer, “I am employed at my Tuscan villa in hunting and studying, sometimes alternately, and sometimes both together; but I am not yet able to determine in which of those pursuits it is most difficult to succeed.”

It is not surprising that hunting should have been the theme of poets, as poetry then ceases to be the language of fiction; neither can the subject itself be deemed unpoetical, as it affords an opportunity to expatiate, not merely on the beauties, but also on the endowments of nature. That the feelings of nature have more of rapture in them than those which are excited through the medium of science, is a fact which cannot, we think, be denied; and thus do we account for the exhilarating passion of the chase. To describe a chase, however, is a task of no small difficulty, and perhaps more so in prose than in verse, as the imagination must be powerfully excited by the transporting scenes on which it has dwelt, and cannot well be restrained in a mere recital of facts. When the noise of the battle is over, powerful must be the pen that could revive [7:11:740] the clang of arms, “The chase is done,” sings Ossian; “and nothing is heard on Ardven but the torrent’s roar.”

Somerville’s poem of The Chase will live to the end of time; for although it was not faultless in the eyes of the perhaps too rigid Johnson, it is written with the spirit and fire his subject demanded; and many of the instructions it conveys, when stripped of their poetical dress, are esteemed by sportsmen of the present day. “Manners,” says Lord Kames, “are never painted to the life by any one to whom they are not familiar neither could a man have written the poem we speak of unless he had been himself a sportsman. Indeed his descriptions of hunting the hare, the stag, and the fox, place the objects clearly and beautifully before our eyes, and show that the poet had often witnessed with rapture the scenes to which he devoted his muse. The following passage, descriptive of the feelings of a master of hounds on a hunting morning, is not merely truly natural, but at the same time highly poetical:

“Hail, gentle dawn! mild, blushing goddess, hail;

Rejoic’d I see thy purple mantle spread

O’er half the skies; gems pave thy radiant way, And orient pearls from every shrub depend.

Farewell, Cleora! here, deep sunk in down, Slumber secure, with happy dreams amused. Me other joys invite;

The horn sonorous calls, the pack awak’d

Their matins chaunt, nor brook my long delay:

Aly courser hears their voice ;—See there! with ears And tail erect, neighing, he paws the ground:

Fierce rapture kindles in his redd’ning eyes, And boils in ev’ry vein.”

Although hunting songs are a species of ancient lyrics, of which the specimens are rare, and in our own country “the songs of the chase” do not appear to include any earlier than the middle of the seventeenth century, we have some of a more modern date that have been highly popular with the public, and no doubt have given the original impulse to many a good sportsman. The power and force of national songs have never been disputed in any age; and he who said, that if he were allowed to compose the ballads of a nation, he would soon alter its form of government, uttered a boast not altogether unfounded in the principles of human nature. Compositions of this kind, then, that tend to encourage a love of manly pursuits and pastimes, and give a relish to a country life, should by no means be thought lightly of by a people who, like ourselves, have ever been conspicuous for our excellence in the one, and our fondness for the other; but which, in the opinion of some, appear to be on the wane, as the natural consequence of our present state of almost excessive refinement. This would be a real cause for regret. The fondness for rural life amongst the higher order of the English has hitherto had a great and salutary effect upon the natural character of their country; and there cannot be found a finer race of men than the country gentlemen of Great Britain. Instead of the softness and effeminacy which characterise the men of rank of most other nations, they exhibit a union of natural elegance and strength, a robustness of frame and freshness of complexion, which are to be attributed to their living so much in the open air, and pursuing so eagerly the invigorating recreations of a country life. Their hard exercise produces a healthy tone of mind and spirits, as well as of body, accompanied with a manliness and simplicity of manners, which even the follies of a town cannot easily pervert, and can never entirely destroy. Let us, however, hope that the fears on this head are groundless; let us hope that what Horace sighed for, what Cato, Plato, and Cicero recommended, what Bion eulogised, what all the best poets of antiquity sang the praises of (according to the poets, the golden age was spent in the country), and for which kings and emperors quitted their thrones, will never be ill suited to, or considered as beneath the taste of a British country gentleman, iň what circle soever he may move. That the sports of the field are classical, the authority of all ages will vouch for; neither is the man of fashion, or haut ton, by any means incompatible with the country gentleman and sportsman. On the contrary, how has the character of Paris been handed down to us by the poets? Was he not the finest gentleman, the greatest favourite of the female sex, the greatest beau of his day? Such he is represented to have been; but although a prince, he had been bred a shepherd; and from the robust habits he had acquired in his youth, he was the only man who could stand up against the powerful arm of Dares, the great champion of his day. What was the all-accomplished Pliny, or Lollius whose education Horace had superintended?

Again; on the score of health, the chief felicity of man, were it not for the sports of the field, the softness and effeminacy of modern manners, in the higher walks of life, would soon exhibit their pernicious effects on forthcoming generations, by depriving them of their natural defence against diseases incident to our climate, by subjecting them to that morbid debility and sensibility of the nervous system which lays the foundation of most diseases, as also depriving them of the courage to support them. And who enjoys the blessing of health equally with the country gentleman and sportsman? Somerville says,

“In vain malignant steams and winter fogs Load the dull air, and hover round our coasts; The huntsman, ever gay, robust, and bold, Defies the noxious vapour, and confides In this delightful exercise to raise

His drooping head, and cheer his heart with joy.”

Certain is it, the rough sports of the country have been known not only to cure diseases of long standing in the human frame; but the exercise of hunting, with the temperance it enjoins, absolutely steels the constitution, as the poet expresses himself, against the attacks of the most common of the diseases peculiar to this variable climate. Its effect on the mind, which he also alludes to, is of no less value; for, from the very exhilarating nature of the amusement, it relieves it from dwelling upon its anxieties, from which few persons are free; and it is one of the best cures for the heartach, or any of those shocks which our flesh is heir to :—

“Dona cano divum, loetas venantibus artes, Auspicio, Diana, tuo,”

sang the poet Gratius; and Horace’s description of a sportsman’s return to his family, after the toils and perils of the day, is a true picture of a country life, replete with every possible enjoyment.

- Objections have been made to encouraging youth in a love of our national field-sports, on the score of their engrossing too much of their time and attention, to the neglect of more necessary attainments. “It is true,” says a Roman historian, “the masters in every branch of learning, whom the accomplished father of Commodus provided for his son, were heard with inattention and disgust; whilst the lessons of the Parthian, or the Moor, in the arts of the javelin and the bow, could not be too often repeated” But where is the pursuit that may not be carried to excess? and yet without zeal no person ever succeeded in field-sports of any kind, much less in hunting. “Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might,” said Solomon; and had not Providence implanted this zeal in man’s nature, he never would have been what man now is, but, comparatively, a useless being. Objections are again made, that the sports of the field, hunting animals with dogs especially, are cruel; but the charge, if proved, does not altogether lie against man. The beasts and birds of the field have been given to him, as well as the way to procure them pointed out to him; or wherefore the almost unsearchable faculties of the dog? Some persons, however, have [7:11:741]thought otherwise: “Is it a labour worthy of man,” says a very celebrated English writer, “to watch from day to day, from night to night, the haunts of our fellow animals, that we may destroy them? To triumph over a poor mangled hare or hind, after we have harassed them up and down the country for many hours together with an army of dogs and men? Is it an exercise becoming the majesty of a rational spirit to run yawling with a parcel of hounds, perhaps a whole day together, after some timorous animal ?” In answer to this it may be urged, that we knew no other method of availing ourselves of them when first they were given for our use; and it may be strongly urged, that the destruction of wild animals was never so speedily, and therefore humanely accomplished, as it is at the present day. A century or two ago, the fox lingered all night in a trap, and then too often was subjected to a lingering, if not an agonizing death. He is now killed by hounds, generally in a short time, if he cannot escape from what may be deemed his lawful pursuers. The buck in the forest of the king, or in the park of the nobleman, is now no longer hunted down by the slow but sure blood-hound, a race nearly extinct, but the unerring eye of the rifle-shot seals his doom on the spot. We agree with the poet, that

“Poor is the triumph o’er the timid hare but she was given for our use, and must be taken, as Esau took the venison, by hunting her ; and here likewise is an improvement. A hundred years back she was trailed up to her form, the operation perhaps of an hour, with the terror-striking notes of the hounds all that time in her ear; and then pursued for at least two hours more, by animals with not half her speed, but with a power of following her by the foot, which it was nearly impossible to evade. At the present day she is whipped out of her form, twenty minutes generally deciding her fate; and, in consequence of her being now pursued in the forenoon, instead of, as before, just on her return from her walk, she escapes oftener than she is killed. Animals destined to fall by the gun are now nearly certain of meeting with instant death. In addition to the increased skill of our marksmen, the improved formation of the gun enables it to carry destruction with a much surer hand, owing to the force and precision with which it carries its shot. Thus, if the game be stricken, it is stricken to instant death, not wounded and mangled by weak, scattered shot. Another consideration presents itself in the discussion of this subject. Life is said to be “sweet ;” but strip it of intellectual enjoyment, and its sweetness is very considerably abated. But we will go one step farther. The natural death of wild animals must generally be lingering, and often painful in the extreme; they have no relief to fly to, but perish as it were by inches. This being admitted, perhaps the hand that instantly deprives them of life may be deemed the hand of a friend.

An old English writer on field-sports thus forcibly, though somewhat boldly, expresses himself on the alleged cruelty of hunting the hare to death. “What can be a more convincing proof of God’s infinite wisdom, or even of his indulgence to the sons of men, than the formation of this animal (the bare), which naturally flies from creatures she never beheld in her life, makes use of the most refined politics to escape their pursuits (although she cannot foresee whether they are the effects of love or anger), and yet is forced to leave behind her such particles of matter as betray her flight? Again, of how nice and curious a contexture must be the innumerable pores or pipes of the dog’s nostrils, which serve as so many sheaths, or canals, to convey the said particles to the brains of the hounds, there to animate and put in motion every limb, joint, and muscle of their bodies. How excellent was the Hand that furnished these creatures with such tuneful notes to assemble their fellows, and give tidings to their masters, with such an amazing art to unravel the various windings of the fugitive, with so relentless fury to pursue her to the death.”

But our sensibilities towards the sufferings of animals are limited, not only in wisdom, but in mercy (for, increase our sensibilities, and who could live ?) and let us not charge a sportsman with cruelty because he is the destroyer of that part of the brute creation which was evidently intended should be destroyed by some one. Sportsmen have existed, and must for ever exist, from necessity. They have extirpated some animals, and culled out such as are serviceable to man, and submit to his will and government. Those that will submit are his friends, those that will not are his foes; and so it was intended to be since the charge was given to Adam, and the subsequent commission to Noah. The sports of the field, indeed, as now followed, are generally allowed to have a tendency to improve and promote a free and generous conduct, as well as that manly spirit which is the very reverse of cruelty; and, in the harmless exercise of our imagination, looking at that law of nature which enjoins the destruction of one animal for the good of another, so far from passing a hard sentence on the sportsman, we think with the poet, that

“His life is pure, who wears no fouler stain 1”

No great satisfaction would arise from a reference to the practices of the ancients in the field, who, it appears from Virgil, hunted any thing, from the wild ass to the stag; but, we have reason to believe, without much system, as far as their dogs had to do with it. We conceive the ancient Germans and Gauls to have been the best early sportsmen upon system; and the ancient Britons, who came originally from Gaul, and, according to Caesar and Tacitus, were one of the widely-extended Celtic tribes, introduced, or rather brought with them from Gaul, that ardent passion for the chase for which Great Britain has ever since been remarkable. The Anglo-Norman and early English monarchs likewise all appear to have had a passion for the chase; and although a code of laws relative to hunting was formed by one of the Welsh princes in the twelfth century, containing a list of animals, climbing ones, for example, which does not accord with the present idea of hunting, we hear nothing of foxhounds per se, till we find them in the kennel of Edward I., and an item in his wardrobe book of L.21. 6s.^ as the annual expenses of his pack, consisting of six couples. Soon after this period, at all events in the course of the next king’s reign, the diversion of hunting in England may be said to have been first reduced to something like a science; treatises having been written on the subject for the instruction of young sportsmen, as well as rules laid down for the observation and conduct of those who filled the various offices, in the forest, the kennel, and the stable. One of the most curious of these performances, is a manuscript written in the beginning of the fourteenth century, in Norman French, by William Twice, huntsman to Edward II., an ancient translation of which occurs amongst the Cottonian manuscripts. In it are enumerated and described the different beasts that were then objects of the chase in England; and, in the manner of a dialogue, the huntsman is informed how he should blow his horn at the different points of a chase. But the generally rude system of hunting in the earlier days of England had previously been in some measure improved and amended by William the Conqueror, of whom Somerville thus writes :— ’

“Victorious William to more decent rules

Subdued our Saxon fathers; taught to speak

The proper dialect; with horn and voice

To cheer the busy hound, whose well-known cry [7:11:742]His listning peers approve with joint acclaim. From him successive huntsmen learn , d to join In bloody social leagues, the multitude Dispers’d; to size, to sort, their warrior tribes, To rear, feed, hunt, and discipline the pack.”

Edward III. was a great stag-hunter; and even at the time he was engaged in war with France, and resident in that country, he had with him, attached to his army, sixty couples of stag-hounds, and an equal number of harehounds. We also learn from Froissart, that the Earl of Foix, a foreign nobleman, contemporary with King Edward, had one hundred and fifty couples of hounds in his castle. But it does not appear that the fox was much in esteem for the chase by any of the Anglo-Norman sportsmen; for in Twice’s Treatise on the Craft of Hunting, he is classed last of all the beasts of venery, excepting the martern and the roe; nor does Somerville in his poem treat him with the respect that he pays to the stag or the hare. The first public notice of him occurs in the reign of Richard II., who gave permission, by charter.! to the Abbot of Peterborough, to hunt him. Hunting, however, in all its branches, appears to have advanced steadily till the last century, when it flourished greatly by the encouragement given to it by George III.; and as time improves every art, it has at length, we believe, attained perfection.

Whatever pastime mankind indulge in, their first endeavour should be to make themselves acquainted with the best means of pursuing it, which will greatly increase the pleasure derived from it. But as the philosopher was laughed at for his offer of teaching Alexander the Great the art of war, so the theory of no pastime is worth any thing unless it be based on practice. And, perhaps, of all sports invented by reason for the use and amusement of mankind, there is none to which theory would avail so little as the noble and popular one of hunting. Indeed, the practical part of hunting, notwithstanding its popularity, is but little known, at least but little understood, from the perplexing difficulties that accompany it; and there is reason to believe it was still less understood before the appearance of a work, in which the whole system is minutely and accurately detailed by an eminent sportsman, and master of fox-hounds, of the early part of the last century. It is scarcely necessary to observe, that the work alluded to is u Beckford’s Thoughts upon Hunting, in a series of familiar Letters to a Friend ;” of which it has been said, “they are so truly the effusions of sound judgment, and so replete with the useful remarks of an experienced sportsman, that there is no room for any thing new or additional to be introduced upon the subject.” It is true, this has been considered, and will continue to be considered, as a standard work amongst sportsmen; but as systems and habits change with time, and many of both have been materially changed since Beckford’s day, another work on fox-hunting, also from a practical pen, made its appearance in 1826, and was well received by the sporting world, viz. “Observations on Fox-Hunting, and the Management of Hounds in the Kennel and the Field, by Colonel Cook,” several years a master of fox-hounds; hunting various English counties, but principally the Rodings of Essex, celebrated for the stoutness of its foxes.

It is oply within a very short space of time that sportsmen have been given to communicate their thoughts, or the result of their experience in the field, to the public, unless under fictitious signatures. In proof, however, of the benefit derived from such contributions to the stock of sporting science, if such a term will be allowed; and likewise in confirmation of what has been advanced on the subject of change of systems and habits that occurs in the course of time, we will make a few comments on the practices of one of the most conspicuous sportsmen England ever gave birth to, the celebrated Hugo Meynell, Esq. of Quorndon Hall, Leicestershire, and made partially known through the medium of a small pamphlet, entitled “The Meynellian Science, or Fox-Hunting upon System,” by the late John Hawkes, Esq. a personal friend of Mr Meynell’s. That Mr Meynell studied fox-hunting as a science, we believe no one will deny; and that his master-mind was quite equal to the task he imposed upon himself, is also an admitted fact; for he was a man of more than ordinary acuteness, coupled with a close and accurate observation of every thing that passed under his eye; and all this with the benefit of an education perfected beyond the usual extent of that bestowed upon, or, perhaps we may say, submitted to, by young gentlemen of large fortune in his day, having studied nearly three years under a private tutor after he became of age. That he shone beyond all others who had preceded him, in the breeding and management of hounds, is a fact universally admitted, producing, as Mr Hawkes says of them, “the steadiest, best, and handsomest pack of fox-hounds in the kingdom ;” adding also the emphatic remark, that his object was to combine strength with beauty, and steadiness with high mettle. His idea of perfect shape was, short backs, open bosoms, straight legs, and compact feet; and the first qualities of hounds he considered to be fine noses and stout runners, opinions which all found to hold good.

But there were peculiarities in Mr Meynell’s system of hunting, to which, as detailed by Mr Hawkes, we scarcely know how to reconcile ourselves. For example, he tells us that his young hounds were broken in to hare in the spring of the year, “to find out their propensities, which, when at all flagrant, they early discovered, and he drafted them according to their defects and in the same page he adds, “after hare-hunting, they were, the remaining part of summer, daily walked amongst riot.” Now we cannot approve of entering hounds to an animal they are not intended to hunt, and are at a loss to comprehend what is here meant by the word “riot,” unless it be hares (as the term generally implies) or deer (which were never found wild in his country), which they had been previously instructed to hunt. Their “propensities,” also, by which is here generally understood their steadiness or unsteadiness, must, under such circumstances, have been rather difficult to pronounce an opinion upon, with the exception of their promising to be true to the line, and not given to skirt. The goodness or badness of nose could of course have been discernible when hunting their own game (the fox), to which, in our opinion, all fox-hounds should be entered. Beckford, we remember, speaks of his huntsman letting his puppies enter to a cat; but we cannot approve of such a practice. ∣

Early in the autumn Mr Meynell hunted his woodlands, Charnwood Forest’ chiefly, with his whole pack, and then divided them into “the old”and “the young pack;” but, to show the disadvantage of this system, Mr Hawkes says, “the young hounds were hunted twice a week, as much in woodlands as possible, and in the most unpopular districts.” The present plan of mixing young and old hounds together is far preferable to this, not only as they can then take their turn in the good and popular “districts,” but, by having the assistance of older hounds in chase, the younger ones are less likely to do wrong.

Mr Meynell’s idea of perfection in hounds, in chase, Mr Hawkes says, “consisted of their being true guiders in hard running, and close and patient hunters in a cold scent, together with stoutness.” Their imperfections, over-running the scent, and babbling, were considered their greatest faults.” To all this every sportsman must assent.

The following passage contains perhaps rather more of [7:11:743]enthusiasm than of fact, although a qualification is given to it in the concluding sentence. “Mr Meynell’s hounds,” says Mr Hawkes, “were criticised by himself and his friends in the most minute manner. Every hound had his peculiar talents, and was sure to have a fair opportunity of displaying them (!) Some had the remarkable faculty of finding a fox, which they would do, almost invariably, notwithstanding twenty or thirty couple were out in the same covert. Some had the propensity to hunt the doubles and short turns. Some were inclined to be hard runners. Some had a remarkable faculty of hunting the drag of a fox, which they would do very late in the day. And sometimes the hardest runners were the best hunters; and fortunate was the year when such excellencies prevailed.”

“Mr Meynell,” continues Mr Hawkes, a prided himself on the steadiness of his hounds, and their hunting through sheep and hares, which they did in a very superior manner. He'seldom or never attempted to lift his hounds through sheep; and from habit, and the great flocks the hounds were accustomed to, they carried the scent on most correctly and expeditiously, much sooner than any lifting could accomplish.” We are far from advocates for lifting hounds when it can be avoided; but knowing the so often insurmountable difficulties occasioned by flocks of sheep and herds of cattle in the country Mr Meynell hunted, in addition to a crowd of horsemen pressing upon the heels of the pack, we consider that, if, under such circumstances, hounds do not almost instantly recover the scent, the assistance of the huntsman is called for. The “steadiness and docility” of Mr Meynell’s pack, we have reason to believe, were remarkable, and are vouched for by other authority than Mr Hawkes’s. “A most extraordinary instance of discipline in hounds,” says Colonel Cook (p. 202), “occurs to me, which I ought to have mentioned when speaking of that unrivalled sportsman the late Mr Meynell. He met in the Market Harborough (Leicestershire) country, at a small patch of gorse on the side of a hill, in a very large pasture field: the hounds feathered as they went in, and found instantly. The covert being only about two acres, and open, Mr Meynell immediately saw that the fox was in danger of being chopped; he therefore called out to Jack Raven, the huntsman, “Jack, take the hounds away and, at one of his usual rates, every hound stopped, and the pack were taken to the hedge side, when Mr Meynell called out three steady hounds, and threw them into the cover. The fox was so loath to break, that the three hounds kept hunting him for ten minutes, in the hearing of all the pack, who lay perfectly quiet at Raven’s horse’s feet, till the fox went away over the finest part of the country; and the moment Mr Meynell gave his most energetic, thrilling holloo (Mr Hawkes speaks of the power of Mr Meynell’s cheering holloa, which, he says, “thrilled through the heart and nerve of every hearer”), every hound flew to him; the burst was the finest that any sportsman ever beheld, and after an hour and ten minutes they killed their fox.” This is doubtless an astonishing instance of command of hounds with a scent before them, particularly so to those persons who are aware of the generally uncontrollable power of the impulse given to them by nature at that particular time; and were it not for the high reputation of the pack alluded to, we should, as we cannot doubt the fact, be inclined to say, it savoured a little of slackness, or, at all events, of a too severe discipline, bordering upon the annihilation of the distinguishing natural properties of the fox-hound, namely, high mettle and dash.

“Mr Meynell,” adds Mr Hawkes, “was not fond of casting hounds; when once they were laid upon the line of scent, he left it to them; he only encouraged them to take pains, and kept aloof, so that the steam of the horses could not interfere with the scent. It is true, hounds should not be cast, if they can do the work themselves; and if the authority of Mr Meynell could restrain a Leicestershire field of horsemen to keep aloof when his hounds were at check, more time may have been given them to make their own cast; but it must be recollected that, when the hounds are at fault, the fox is not.” Again, “when his hounds came to a check, every encouragement was given to them to recover the scent, without the huntsman getting amongst them, or whippers-in driving them about, which is the common practice of most packs. The hounds were holloa’d back to the place where they brought the scent, and encouraged to try round in their own way, which they generally did successfully, avoiding the time lost in the mistaken practice of casting hounds at the heels of the huntsman. When the hounds were cast, it was in two or three different lots, by Mr Meynell, his huntsman, and whipper-in; and not driven together in a body, like a flock of sheep. They were allowed to spread, and use their own sagacity, at a very gentle pace; and not hurried about in a blustering manner. It was Mr Meynell’s opinion, that a great noise, and scolding of hounds, made them wild. Correcting them in a quiet way was the most judicious method. Whippers-in also should turn hounds quietly, and not call after them in a noisy, disagreeable manner.” In all the foregoing remarks we coincide with the opinions of these two celebrated sportsmen. We think a huntsman should never be nearer than from sixty to a hundred yards of his hounds when they first check; nor can a whipper-in execute his office of turning or stopping a hound at this moment too quietly and discreetly; but no general line of conduct for either the one or the other can be laid down. Some hounds, and especially if they have been pressed upon by horsemen, will not turn to either horn or holloa, without a smack of the whip, or at all events a rate; nor will the body of the pack, if a little blown, or excited by a previous holloa, always try for their fox so well and quickly as they should do, if left quite to themselves; or, as Mr Hawkes so properly expresses himself, if left to “their own sagacity.” That a great noise makes hounds wild no one doubts, and the system of holloaing is every year on the decrease. As for the division of the pack into three lots when at fault, that perhaps originated with Mr Meynell; indeed we believe it did; but the practice is now become not uncommon, of its being divided into two, namely, one lot with the huntsman, and the other with the first whipper-in.

“When hounds are going to the cry,” writes Mr Hawkes, “they should be encouraged in a pleasant way; not driven and rated, as if discord was a necessary ingredient in the sport and music of a finb cry of hounds. Whippers-in are too apt to think their own importance and consequence consist in shouting, holloaing, and unnecessary activity. When hounds can hear the cry, they get together sooner than any whipper-in can drive them. If any hound is conceited, and disinclined to go to cry, he should immediately be drafted.”

On the subject of blood, that is, killing and eating foxes, we entirely assent to the following remarks: “Blood was a thing Mr Meynell was more indifferent about than most masters of hounds. The wildest packs of hounds were known to kill the most foxes in cover, but very seldom showed good runs over a country. Hounds chopping foxes in cover is more a vice than a proof of their being good cover-hounds. Murdering foxes is a most absurd prodigality. Seasoned foxes are as necessary to sport as experienced hounds.” Our o∖vn opinion of the value of blood to hounds perfectly accords with that which, it appears, was entertained by Mr Meynell; namely, that it is far from a sine qua non to the well-doing of fox-hounds, or any other hounds, as is apparent at once from the mo [7:11:744]dern system of hunting the stag. If it be possible, the pack are not permitted to break his skin, much more to devour him; still, despite of the rating and flogging they get to prevent their injuring the object they are pursuing, they do pursue it to the last with all their might and main. But let it not be supposed that we set no value on what may be termed well-carried blood. On the contrary, we think the flesh and blood of a fox well found, and handsomely killed, by hounds in the moments of high excitement, must be very beneficial to them. But when chopped in a cover (generally the effect of accident, and not, as Mr Hawkes supposed, of vicious propensity in any individual hound), we consider a round of beef would be a more acceptable present to them; nor is the case much altered when a fox is digged out of an earth, after perhaps an hour’s delay. We remember to have heard Mr Osbaldeston assert, that the best week’s sport he ever had in Leicestershire when he hunted it, was after his hounds had been out nine days in succession without tasting a fox.

“Mr Meynell’s natural taste,” continues Mr Hawkes, “led him to admire large hounds; but his experience convinced him that small ones were generally the stoutest, soundest, and in every respect the most executive. His hounds had more good runs than any pack of his day. Two very extraordinary ones happened of a very rare description. One was a run of one hour and twenty minutes without a check, and killed their fox. The other was two hours and fifty minutes without a cast, and killed. The hounds in the first run kept well together, and only two horses performed it; the rest of the field were unequal to its fleetness. The other run alluded to was performed by the whole of the pack; and though all were up at the death, two or three slackened in their pace just at the last. One horse only went the whole of it.”

Mr Hawkes thus speaks of the necessary qualifications of hounds to show sport :—“To obtain a good run, hounds should not only have good abilities, but they should be experienced, and well acquainted with each other. To guide a scent well over a country for a length of time, and through all the difficulties usually encountered, requires the best and most experienced abilities. A faulty hound, or injudicious rider, by one improper step, may defeat the most promising run.” It is evident, from the above judicious observations, that an old-established pack of hounds must have great advantages over one of an opposite character.

We shall finish our extracts from this little pamphlet, which was merely circulated privately amongst the author’s friends, but valued as from the pen of so eminent a sportsman as the late ‘Mr Hawkes proved himself to be, both in the field and on the race-course, where he shone conspicuously as one of the best gentlemen-jockies of his day, with his judicious remark on the conduct of sportsmen who follow hounds. “Gentlemen, and every person who makes hunting his pursuit,” says he, “should learn to ride judiciously to hounds. It is a contemplative amusement; and much good diversion might be promoted by a few regular precautions. The principal thing to attend to is, not to ride too near the hounds, and always as much as possible anticipate a check. By which means the leading men will pull their horses up in time, and afford the hounds fair opportunity to keep the line of scent unbroken. Sheep, cattle, teams at plough, and arable land, are all causes of checks. Thoughtless sportsmen are apt to press too much on hounds, particularly down a road. Every one should consider that every check operates against the hounds, and that scent is of a fleeting nature, soon lost, never again to be recovered.”

The following is the concluding paragraph, affording a good specimen of the writer’s enthusiastic love of foxhunting, as also of a cultivated mind :—“Fox-hunting,” he asserts, “is a manly and fine exercise, affording health to the body, and matter and food for a contemplative mind. In no situation are the faculties of man more displayed. Fortitude, good sense, and collectiveness of mind, have a wide field for exercise; and a sensible sportsman would be a respectable character in any situation in life. The field is a most agreeable coffeehouse, and there is more real society to be met with there than in any other situation of life. It links all classes together, from the peer to the peasant. It is the Englishman’s peculiar privilege. It is not to be found in any other part of the globe, but in England’s true land of liberty; and may it flourish to the end of time I”

There is perhaps no part of the material of fox-hunting more interesting than the management of hounds in the kennel, which, we do not hesitate in saying, presents one of the most curious scenes that are anywhere displayed in the whole circle of the transactions of mankind with the inferior animal creation. To see sixty couples of those animals, all hungry as tigers, standing aloof in their yard (as is the practice in some kennels), and, without even hearing, much less feeling, the whip, not daring to move until the order is given to them to move. And what is the order given? why, at the words, “Come over, Bitches,” or, “Come over, Bogs,” every hound of each individual sex comes forward, as the sex it belongs to may be called for, leaving those of the other sex in their places. Then the act of drawing them to the feeding troughs is an exceedingly interesting sight. Often, with the door wide open, and the savoury meat in their view, the huntsman has no use for his whip, having nothing to do but to call each hound by his name, which of course he readily answers to. The expression of countenance, too, at this time, is well worthy of notice; and that of earnest solicitation, of entreaty, we might almost say of importunity, cannot be more forcibly displayed than in the face of a hungry hound awaiting his turn to be drawn. He appears absolutely to watch the lips of the huntsman, anticipating his own name. A view of a pack of fox-hounds likewise in their lodging-rooms, is a most agreeable sight to those who love to see animals in a high state of enjoyment, which no doubt hounds are when reposing on their well littered-down benches after a hard day’s work, and with their bellies well filled. They absolutely appear to feel for each other’s comforts, in placing themselves in situations that enable their fellow-creatures to repose parts of their bodies upon their own, to render their position for sleep and rest more agreeable to them.

The system of fox-hunting has been much changed since that sport commenced. Almost all foxes were once found by the drag, and the first challenge was loudly cheered in days when the game was scarce. A long drag, however, although a great test of nose, is by no means desirable, as, if it happens to be down wind, the fox takes the hint, and is off long before the hounds can hunt up to his kennel. It was nevertheless a fine feature in the sport, as the gradual increase of cry, the cheering holloas of the sportsmen, and the crash when the fox was unkennelled, contributed greatly to ennoble the scene, and created, as it were, two climaxes in a chase, when it ended in blood. But another disadvantage attended it. Hounds could not be depended upon, taking the average of scent, to hunt a drag that had become cold; so they were obliged to be out very early in the morning, which was not only disagreeable, as encroaching upon the sportsman’s rest, but was coupled with the disadvantage, at all events with the risk, of finding a gorged fox, too full to run far, much less to run fast. The modern system does not require the drag, as woodland covers are comparatively small to what they used to be; gorse covers made for the [7:11:745]purpose of holding foxes are easily accessible to hounds accustomed to draw them; and the game is in most countries so plentiful, that if a fox be not found in one cover, he is almost certain to be found in another, and that not far off. The consequence is, no more time is now lost in drawing two or three gorse covers, than the drag of one fox formerly occupied; neither did that always lead to a find. Moreover, at the present hour of finding, there is but little chance of unkennelling a gorged fox.

It is by some asserted, that what are called woodland foxes are stouter runners than those bred in the artificial gorse and other covers, and we have good reason to believe they are so. But the great objection to large woodlands is the uncertainty of getting a run, from the difficulty of making foxes break from them, as they naturally hang to places which appear to afford them security; and it often happens that hounds, and the horses of the servants, have done a fair day’s work before the run begins. On the other hand, we admit that a fox found in a wood of considerable extent is more likely to show a decidedly good day’s sport, than one found in an artificial cover, and for this reason: he slips away unperceived, eight times out of ten, and consequently has time to look about him, and make his points, ere the chase commences; whereas a fox viewed away from a small gorse cover, within sight of a hundred or two of horsemen, is bullied, frightened, and soon blown, which occasions him to run short; and, of course, if the scent serves, and the hounds are good, he cannot live long, half an hour being as much as can be calculated upon under such circumstances. Gorse covers, however, if not too small,—not under three or font acres, —are indispensable in a hunting country, as foxes are very fond of them for their security against any thing but fox-hounds; and another great advantage attending them is, that they can be placed wherever it may be thought desirable to place them.

The making of gorse covers requires no small attention, we had nearly said shill. The ground is all the better for being trenched to the depth of from a foot to a foot and a half, and it should be made as clean and in as good condition as if it were to be the seed-bed of turnips. The seed should be minutely examined, as it often fails from having lost its germinating properties; and it should be drilled in the ground, and hoed, after the manner of a turnip crop. By keeping it clean by the hoe, it will, if the seed be good, and the land dry, often hold a fox in the second year, but will seldom fail in the third. Some writers, Colonel Cook among the number, speak of broom being sown amongst gorse. This should never be, as all huntsmen who draw, or run through, broom covers, can vouch for their being decidedly inimical to scent. A novel description of fox-cover came into fashion a few years back in Leicestershire, but is not highly approved of, from the difficulty hounds experience in drawing it. Strong black thorn stakes are driven into the ground endways, at a small distance apart, and the rank grass and weeds growing rapidly over, and entwining with them, form a strong cover the first year; and it is found proof against a fall of snow, which gorse covers are not, and are often forsaken by foxes on that account. All artificially-made covers should be not nearer than half a mile at the least to any house or village; and if on a gently sloping bank, facing the south, foxes will like them better.

Some sportsmen object to many rides being cut through covers, as they are so often the cause of foxes being headed by the horsemen. The objection in part holds good; but a certain number of rides are necessary in all large covers, to enable the servants to get near their hounds, who might otherwise be disposed to run riot, as they soon discover when they are out of the reach of either rate or whip. Woodlands, with rides in them, are essential to the making of young hounds in all countries; and the finest in England are those of the Duke of Buccleuch, near Kel-tering in Northamptonshire, within the limits of the Pytchley Hunt, with rides, or, speaking more properly, avenues in them, to the extent of upwards of fifty miles.

When speaking of the disadvantages of large woods, in which foxes are apt to hang or dwell, Colonel Cook recommends killing a fox, and letting the hounds eat him, in the middle of them; which we believe will generally have the desired effect. On the other hand, should a fox be killed in a small cover, he should, if possible, be carried out of it before the hounds break him up, for reasons which are obvious from the foregoing remark.

The arrangement of earths, and the stopping of them, are matters of no small importance in a hunting country. Artificial ones are sometimes made, but they are reckoned unhealthy for foxes; and the best are those made by badgers, which can always be commanded at pleasure, by turning out those animals in pairs. On the proper and , careful stopping of earths every thing depends; for nothing can be more annoying to sportsmen than to have their fox get to ground, just as the hounds have well settled to the scent of him, with every prospect of a run. There are various methods of stopping earths, but none more secure than by a bunch of gorse, or furze, crammed well into rhe mouth of them, with the stalks pushed inwards. When earths are only slightly stopped, a fox will scratch his way into them; and as this very often happens, it shows the necessity of a careful and experienced earthstopper; and we agree with Colonel Cook in thinking it better to pay for each day’s stopping, rather than annually in the lump, reserving the power to withhold payment in case of evident neglect. The expense of earth-stopping varies according to the nature of the soil, covers, &c.; but in certain countries it amounts to as much as L.200 per annum. It may also surprise some persons to hear, that the rent paid for artificial covers, that is, for the land on which they are made, in one hunt alone, in Leicestershire, amounts to upwards of L.700 per annum.

The following calculations of the expenses of a pack of fox-hounds, varying, of course, with the extent of them, are given by Colonel Cook, and admitted to be very near the mark; making allowance for the difference in the price of markets at the time he made them, and at others.

For hounds hunting twice a week :—

Six horses, including groom and helpers L.300

Hounds’ food, for 25 couples 150

Firing 30

Taxes BO

Whipper-in and feeder 140

Earth-stopping 50

Saddlery 40

Farriery, shoeing, medicine, &c 50

Young hounds purchased, and expenses at walks... 60 Casualties 100

L.1000

A second whipper-in, and two horses in addition... 170

L.1170

Expenses for three times a week :—

Twelve horses, groom, helpers, &c L.600

Food for forty couples of hounds 220

Firing 40

Taxes 100

Two whippers-in and feeder 210

Earth-stopping 65

Saddlery 80

Farriery, shoeing, &c ,....' 80

Young hounds purchased, and expenses at walks... 80 Casualties 150

’ L.1625

5 B [7:11:746]Expenses for four times a week :—

Fourteen horses, &c L.700

Hounds’ food for fifty couples 275

Firing . 50

Taxes 120

Two whippers-in and feeder 210

Earth-stop pin g 80

Saddlery 100

Farriery, shoeing, &c 100

Expenses of greyhounds purchased, and at walks... 100

Casualties ∙ 200

L.1935

“If you do not attend to the kennel department yourself,” adds the Colonel, “but keep a huntsman, the expense will be at least L.300 more.”

The only remark we have to offer on the foregoing calculations is, that the author does not allow a sufficient number of hounds for the several days’ hunting in the week. For example, we venture to say, that no country could be hunted four times a week with fifty couples of hounds; at all events, fifty couples of hounds equal to that work are very rarely to be found. We agree with the writer, that either four times a week, or even twice, are preferable to three, for keeping hounds in regular work, when sound But on the subject of expenses we have a word or two more to say. Knowing, as we do, that they generally, we believe we may add always, exceed the calculations made by Colonel Cook, and in some instances by double, we consider it rather inconceivable that, in the present depressed state of land property, either noblemen or private gentlemen should be expected or permitted to bear all the chargé of hunting a country themselves, knowing, as we do, the great sacrifices of property and income that have already been made to a perseverance in keeping fox-hounds, unassisted by a subscription. But this cannot go on much longer; nor indeed is it, with some exceptions, fit that it should; and, in support of our assertions, we will quote the sentiments of a writer on this subject, admirably well expressed, in a late number of the New Sporting Magazine.^[1. No. xχxiv. vol. vi. ]

After hinting at the probable decline of a sport, from this cause alone, which Mr Burke described as “one of the balances of the constitution,”he thus proceeds :—“As to the total abolition of the sport, we anticipate no such event. It is the favourite sport of Englishmen; and that which a man likes best he will relinquish last. Still, with the exception of countries that boast their Clevelands, their Yarboroughs and Suttons, their Graftons, Beauforts, Rutlands, Fitzwilliams, Segraves, Middletons (his lordship is since dead), and Harewoods—their great and sporting noblemen, in fact—we feel assured that, unless something be speedily arranged, half the packs in England must either be curtailed of their fair proportion of sport, or abolished altogether. This is not as it should be. Men are as fond of hunting, at least of riding to hounds, as ever; but though we feel that we may be telling a disagreeable truth to many, the fact is, that most men want to hunt for nothing. The day for this, however, is fast drawing to a close. The breed of country gentlemen who keep hounds—the Ralph Lambtons, the Farquharsons, the Assheton Smiths, the Villebois and Osbaldestons—are fast disappearing, in all probability never to be renewed. True that it is a fine, a proud sight, to see an English country gentleman spending his income on his native soil, and aftbrding happiness and amusement to his neighbours, receiving their respect and esteem in return; but we cannot help feeling, that unless a man has one of those overwhelming incomes that are more frequently read of than enjoyed, it is hardly fair that the expenses of a sport which affords health and recreation to hundreds should fall upon his individual shoulders. Heirs at law will not be hindered by the remoteness of relationship from impugning the conduct of their ancestors; nor will it be any consolation to a son, on coming into possession of an overburdened estate, to know that the difficulties which oppress him were incurred for the purpose of keeping a pack of fox-hounds, by which his father afforded amusement to the country.” It may here be not unappro-priately added, that at the time the above was written (February 1834), three of the best hunting countries in England were vacant, viz. the Quorndon in Leicestershire, the Pytchley in Northamptonshire, and the Oakley in Bedfordshire.

Fox-hunting is a sort of prescriptive right, which England has claimed from a very early period; and, more than this, it has long been considered that the common law allowed persons to enter the lands of another in pursuit of a fox, the destruction of which was presumed to be a public benefit. This opinion was founded on the celebrated case Grundy v. Feltham (1, Term. Reports, p. 334); but in that of Earl of Essex v. Capel, Summer Assizes, 1809, the legality of hunting foxes over the land of another iš rendered very questionable. This being the case, it is a great compliment to the sport, as no doubt injury of land to a certain amount, though small, is occasioned by it, that it is permitted to the extent to which we see it, in every county in Great Britain; and that an action of trespass is an unusual occurrence, must be considered as still more creditable to the yeomanry and tenantry who live by the occupation of land. On the other hand, however, it must be remembered, that the produce of land is very considerably enhanced by the great demand, as well as extra prices given, for hay, corn, and straw, as likewise by the encouragement to breeding horses; and that, wherever there is a colony of fox-hunters, it is accompanied by a great influx of money, which is expended in the immediate neighbourhood.

There were formerly three established classes of hunting in Great Britain, each of which had advocates, as it may have been suitable to situation, fortune, time of life, &c.; and although the struggle for superiority has ended in favour of that of the fox, we have reason to believe, that since what are termed “packs of hounds” have been established, hunting the stag or buck claims precedence of the hare; the hare of the fox; the otter, perhaps, of all. We will then offer a few more remarks upon them, as we have ranked them here.

Since the stag has ceased to be drawn for, and found in his native majesty, and hunted as a wild animal, “stag hunting” has lost all its interest with the sportsman; and when we say that the chase of no other animal is,’after all, from first to last, so full of interest as that of the stag, the sportsman has some cause for regret. But wild-stag hunting could not have remained one of the popular diversions of Great Britain, for two sufficient reasons. First, from the country being so generally cleared of wood, there would have been a great scarci tyotgame; and, secondly, from the circumstance of the stag being, by his nature, unfit to be hunted during some of the months that sportsmen like to be on the field. The act of harbouring the deer, however, must be considered as amongst the very highest branches of the sportsman’s art, and one which none but a well-practised sportsman could perform. Neither was the hunting to death of the wild stag by any means so easy a task as might be supposed, from the bulk of the animal, which it must be proportionally difficult for him to conceal. On the contrary, like [7:11:747]the harts of Meandros, flying from the terrible cry of Diana’s hounds, the “wise hart,” or cerf sage as he is termed in ancient hunting, knows how to foil hounds perhaps as well as, or better than, most other wild animals, and is allowed to consult the wind in his course more than any of them. It is also said of him, that he will, when pursued, rouse other deer from their lair, to induce the hounds to run counter, or change; and his device of taking soil, with nothing but the nose to be seen above the water; running down a stream, and seeking for a hard and dry road when pressed; are facts too well established to require comment. But, after all, the subtilty of man in harbouring a deer, and knowing beforehand its age, sex, and size, by the slot and other distinguishing marks which it leaves behind it as it traverses its native forests, is more conspicuously displayed than in any other department of the chase, and is a most satisfactory illustration of “the dominion given to man over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” We shall then dismiss this part of our subject with the remark, that although, properly speaking, the diversion of hunting the stag is totally extinct in Great Britain, we can vouch practically for the fact, that there is not a nobler sight in nature than that of a full-headed stag roused from his lair by hounds, and majestically trotting before them, snuffing the air as he goes, and appearing to care little for his pursuers, from confidence in his natural powers. That these powers are great, all modern stag-hunters are satisfied of; and those of endurance, when chased, are allegorized in the fable of the Maenalaean stag, the running down of which is said to have occupied Hercules for a year, and was in consequence counted amongst the labours of that hero. That deer are superiorly winded animals, is apparent by the immense height they can leap, just before they die from bodily exhaustion; and it may be accounted for by their being furnished with two spiracles, or breathing places, one at the corner of each eye. Oppian, the Greek poet, must have supposed, by the following line, that they had four. w ^VirζaSυ[it>i ∕hvif, π ∣ tυζts nvowrι ĨiuuXoi,” which was a mistake of the sporting bard; and some writers have made Aristotle say, that goats breathed at their ears, whereas he directly asserts the contrary. The classic writers, however, as well as our own poets, have taken some of their most beautiful similes from the chase of the deer; for example, Virgil’s comparing the flight of Turnus to a stag trying to escape from the toils; and the death of the favourite hind by the hand of the young lulus, a master-piece of pastoral poetry. But the death of the stag has been a favourite theme of our own poets; and both Shakspeare and Thomson have been equally happy in their description of the last moments of the antlered monarch of the forest, the latter particularly:

“He stands at bay, And puts his last weak refuge in despair. The big round tears run down his dappled face: He groans in anguish; whilst the growling pack, Blood-happy, hang at his fair jutting chest, And mark his beauteous chequer’d sides with gore.”

The following account of hunting the wild stag in Devonshire, but now nowhere to be seen in England, is from one of Nimrod’s Tours, in 1824:—“The amusement of staghunting appears to be of ancient date in the county of Devon. For many years previous to 1775, the North Devon stag-hounds were kept in a style almost amounting to magnificent, by the then Sir Thomas Acland, Bart., when Colonel Basset took them and kept them to the year 1784. At that period the late Sir Thomas Acland became master of them, and kept them to the year 1793, when Colonel Basset took them again, at his own expense, and hunted them to the year 1801 inclusive; when ill health obliging him to part with them, he gave away all but six couples and a half to Lord Soudes. In 1802 Lord Fortescue revived them, by receiving from Colonel Basset the six couples and a half he had reserved, and kept them for that year. In 1803 they were first kept by subscription by Mr Worth, who continued at the head of them till 1810. In 1811 Lord Graves became master of them, also by subscription; but in the spring of 1812 Lord Fortescue determined upon keeping them at his own expense, which he did for seven years, when they were once more established by subscription; and since the year 1819 have ' been managed by Mr Lucas, who still continues at their head.”

The next year after Nimrod visited them, they were given up; but we give the extracts from his account of two days’ diversion with these hounds, on each of which they found a “warrantable” deer. Speaking of the first, he says, “When we arrived within half a mile of the covert in which a stag was harboured, the hounds, till then in couples, were put into a stable, when the celebrated Joe Faulknor, one of the whippers-in, was despatched with two couples of old hounds, for the purpose of rousing the game. One of these, a hound called Leader, was shown to me as a sample of a perfect stag-hound; and they were both said to be so steady, and to know a rate so well, that they will stop if a wrong (not a warrantable) deer be found, and will draw again. It was some time after Joe had got his tufters into covert before we heard any thing but an accidental note from his melodious pipe, which is certainly pitched in the right key. During this interval of suspense, for, as the poet sings,

“The blood more stirs To rouse a lion than to start a hare,”

a farmer rode up with a piece of a stick in his hand, which was cut to the size of a slot he had found in a neighbouring wood. On my measuring it by my hand, I found it to be four inches in length, which, exceeding the usual length, showed it to be the slot of an old and very large stag.” He then proceeds to relate that the harboured stag was roused, but afforded very little sport, on account of the extreme badness of the weather, and total want of scent. Of the find on the second day he thus speaks :—“The stag lay ‘ close couched,’ or he must have been found before. We stood on an eminence which overhung the covert, and therefore could command a view of it. A long silence had prevailed, and we began to wonder wdiat had become of Joe and his tufters, when all on a sudden a holloa was heard, and a hound threw his tongue:

“The deep-mouthed blood-hound’s heavy bay Resounded up the rocky way;

And faint, from further distance borne, Were heard the clanging hoof and horn.”

The rouse, it seems, had taken place in a small covert, a short distance below us, and we could see a stag of noble size, with branching antlers, trotting majestically along in a small opening between two woods, apparently paying little attention to the old hounds behind him. Indeed, at one time, so far from verifying the words of a poet, that pedibus timor addidit alas, he very coolly broke into a walk, as much as to say, 1 1 value you not but the staunch old tufters getting nearer to his haunches, obliged him to quicken his pace; and, to the great joy of all present, he put his head straight for a moor twelve miles across.” But this is a subject for poetry; and it is impossible to read even the foregoing short account of rousing the deer with hounds, without calling to our recollection the beautiful lines of the Scottish bard in the Lady of the Lake, so strictly true to nature :—

“The antlered, monarch of the waste

Sprang from his heathery couch in haste;

But ere his fleet career he took, The dew-drops from his flanks he shook; [7:11:748] Like crested leader proud and high, Tossed his beamed frontlet to the sky; A moment gazed adown the dale, A moment snuffed the tainted gale; A moment listen’d to the cry, That thicken’d as the chase drew nigh; Then, as the headmost foes appear’d, With one brave bound the copse he clear’d, And stretching forward free and far, Sought the wild heaths of Uam-Var.”

Nimrod relates a few incidents connected with this day’s sport, peculiar to hunting the deer. “I had,” says he, “in this run, an opportunity of witnessing a circumstance peculiar to stag-hunting, and that is, hunting in water. Our deer beat down a river for about half a mile, the hounds following him by scent, which we might wonder how they could avail themselves of in so chilling an element as a rapidly-flowing stream. This, I think, may be called one of the master-pieces of natural instinct.” Again, “Our stag once sank in Breraridge Wood, when he was fresh found; and the crash of those deep-tongued hounds at the time was very fine indeed. I was in hopes we should have viewed him in Castle Hill Park, but we were just too late. When he broke out of the park, he took a ring through some of the neighbouring coverts; when skirting it again, he returned to the place where he was found, and was killed at Bragford, a short distance beyond. He was once what is called ‘ set up’ in the water, where he sank; but breaking out again, he was pulled down by the pack; and when one of the field went up to him to cut his throat, his eye was glazed. He was as fine a stag as ever was seen. He had brow, bay, tray, three on top on one horn, and two on the other; and the weight of his haunch was thirty-nine pounds." Nimrod laments the want of the French horns that formed part of this establishment, but which, some time before his visiting it, were done away with. The recheat and the mort were wanting to make the thing complete.

A kind of technological dictionary is required to almost all sports of flood and field. Of the technical terms in deer-hunting Nimrod thus speaks :—“What we fox-hunters call the ball or pad of a fox on foot, they term the ‘ slot.’ We drag up to a fox; they draw on the slot, or walk up a deer. We find or unkennel a fox; they rouse or unharbour a deer. A fox runs up and down a cover; a dear beats up or down a covert, or a stream. With us, a fox is headed (turned back, or driven from his point); with them, a deer is blanched. We say, a fox stops or hangs in a cover, in a run; they say, their game sinks. We recover our fox; they fresh find their deer. We run into (kilD our fox; they set up the deer. The fox is worried; the deer is broken up. The fox goes a clicketting; the deer goes to rut. The fox barks; the stag bellows. The bil-liting (excrement) of the one is termed the feument or feumishing of the other. The brush of the fox is the single of the deer. The mask of the fox is the snout or nose of the deer. The view, the foil, the tally-ho, and who-whoop, are common, I believe, to all; but currant jelly and sweet sauce are not in the fox-hunter’s vocabulary.” “There are some expressions here,” continues Nimrod, “which require farther explanation than I am able to afford them; and it is almost presumptuous in me, without any assistance at hand, to attempt giving an opinion on the subject. The word ‘ harbour,’ however, is one of common acceptation, and implies a place of refuge. To unharbour a deer has long since been settled by Pliny: ‘ Excutere feram cubili? The expression is clear, and falls smoothly on the ear. Not so with ‘ taking soil :’ it savours of filth, and is only applicable, in this sense, to a hog delighting, in the summer months, to wallow in mud or dirty water, previously to going to his bed. To ‘ beat up and down’ is only another way of expressing to run to and fro, and is found in Terence, in the word cursito. The deer being t set up,’ can only be in allusion to his having his throat cut; for Cicero speaks of a man being ‘ set up’ to have that pleasant operation performed :—‘ In cervicibus imponere dominum.’ The stag roused from his lair has certainly a great superiority over unkennelling the fox. The latter is tame and puny, whereas the former is bold and classical, and quite, in association with the wildness of the forest, of which this animal is the monarch. The lair is but another word for the den; as we read in Virgil’s celebrated contrast of a town and country life, in which he so beautifully describes the manly pursuits of the latter; and likewise in the hunting scene with Dido and Aeneas. The word feument I never heard before, but conclude it is derived from the Greek word recrementum"

The following is Nimrod’s description of a full-headed deer. “A perfect head, I find, consists of brow, bay, tray, and three on top of each horn; but some have brow, bay, tray, and five,on each horn, though these are rare.”

Of the powers of endurance of a deer before hounds, as also of his subtilty in foiling them, the same writer thus speaks: “When we reflect on the powers of a stag, and look at his qualities for speed, we cannot be surprised that, when not overladen with flesh, or a ‘ heavy deer,’ as he is then called in Devonshire, he should afford some extraordinary chases. The following well-authenticated facts will speak to their powers of locomotion: ‘ When Sir Thomas Acland kept the hounds, a farmer in the neighbourhood of Holnicoe House saw a stag one evening in his fields, with a particular spot on his side. The next morning he met this same stag running in great distress, with the hounds close at his haunches, and he soon afterwards sank before them. On his asking Sir Thomas where he had found him, he learnt that it was twenty-five miles, as the crow flies, from the place where he was killed. He must therefore have travelled that distance in the course of the previous night.’” Again, on the power of leaping, which we have already noticed, and particularly in allusion to their wind, when otherwise much distressed, we find the following remark: “On my return from hunting on the preceding Tuesday’s hunting,” says Nimrod, “I was shown a leap, in Lord Fortescue’s park, which a hind had taken last season before this pack, after a long,run, and not ten minutes before she sank before them. What makes it more extraordinary is, that, on being paunched, a calf was taken from her almost able to stand. The fence was a stone wall, with a rail on the top of it, not to be broken; and your readers may judge of its height from the following statement, having had no other means of measuring it: My own height is five feet nine inches; the horse I rode is fifteen hands two inches high; the top of the fence was upwards of two feet above the crown of my hat; and it was up a steep bank that she approached it. The stag we ran went up to this fence, but did not attempt to leap it.”

The natural history of the stag will be given in due course; and we now dismiss the subject of stag-hunting with the remark that, although, from the adverse circumstances attending it in a country like Great Britain, so generally free from large tracts of woodlands, which the red deer delights in, and also so much intersected with streams, real stag-hunting can never be again reckoned amongst the popular diversions in England, a good substitute for it is found in the turning out deer before fox-hounds in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, which has the advantage of affording a certainty of something in the shape of a run, and frequently very long ones, to persons whose time is precious, as well as the opportunity of, in a great measure, selecting the country best suited to the habits and propensities of the game. There are a number of stag-hunting establishments in England, and there has been a royal establishment of this nature throughout several successive reigns. In that of George III. stag-hunting was in high repute[7:11:749] amongst the nobility and gentry forming the court, as well as of others residing in its neighbourhood. Mr Beckford said little about it, because he knew little: the reason he himself gives; but the following expression in his book relating to it made a deep impression on fox-hunters, who reluctantly acknowledge its truth. “Could a fox-hound,” says Mr Beckford, “distinguish a hunted fox, as the deerhound does the deer that is blown, fox-hunting would be complete.”

The roe-buck has partaken of the same respite from the chase as the wild red deer, although by the old laws of the forest he was not considered as venison until hunted; and, according to Caesar, the Britons did not eat this animal at all. The fact is, the roe-buck runs so short, after the first ring, that he is said to hunt the hounds, instead of the hounds hunting him; an artifice by which he hopes to elude his pursuers, as, of course, it must produce a confusion of scents. Neither does his cunning end here. When closely pursued in a thick wood, he will bound to one side of a path by a sudden spring, and, lying close down upon his belly, permit the hounds to pass by him without offering to stir. But the beauty of form and elegance of motion of the “favourite roe,” which Solomon has made an emblem of connubial attachment, ought to protect it from the chase, although they do not appear to have done so in the country in which Solomon wrote, as he recommends to the man who has engaged to be surety for his neighbour, to deliver himself “as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.” There has been only one pack of roe-buck hounds kept in Great Britain, and that was by a gentleman of the name of Pley-dell, of Whatcombe House, near Blandford, Dorsetshire, lately deceased, in whose covers these animals abounded, as they also do in various parts of Scotland.

Hunting the otter was a sport much thought of in England, and is of very early date, chiefly perhaps for the great value formerly set on fresh-water fish, previously to that of the sea being so generally available throughout the country as it has been within the last hundred years, and continues to be still more so. The system of hunting the otter is this: The sportsmen go on each side of the river, beating the banks and sedges with the hounds. If there be an otter near, his “seal” (foot) is soon traced on the shore; and, when found, he is attacked by the sportsmen with spears, when he “vents,” that is, comes to the surface of the water to breathe. If he be not soon found by the river side, it is conjectured he is gone to “couch” inland, for he will occasionally go some distance from his river to feed. He is traced by the foot, as the deer is; and when found, and wounded in the water, he makes directly for the shore, where he maintains an obstinate defence. He bites most severely, and does not readily quit his hold; on the contrary, if he seizes a dog in the water, he will dive with him to the bottom of the river, and will never yield to him whilst he has life. This sport is still pursued in the few fenny and watery districts that now remain in England, and has for a long time been confined principally to those parts where, from local circumstances, the other more noble and exhilarating distinctions of the chase cannot be conveniently enjoyed. An attempt, however, has been recently made to revive it, by a celebrated Oxfordshire sportsman, Mr Peyton, only son of Sir Henry Peyton, Bart., of which attempt we subjoin an account, extracted from the Oxford Journal. By this, two facts are established; the one, that otter-hunting spiritedly pursued is not a tame diversion; and the other, that the charge against this animal of destroying young lambs and poultry, is not altogether unfounded.

“We have great pleasure in informing our readers, that a novelty in the sporting world, as far as relates to this county, has recently been introduced by that ardent and indefatigable sportsman, Mr Henry Peyton, namely, a pack of those rare animals, otter-hounds, with which he hunts the country in the neighbourhood of Bicester; so that these midnight marauders and inveterate enemies of the finny tribe, which are numerous in the Cherwell, and streams near Rousham and North Aston, will not repose as heretofore in uninterrupted security. Mr Peyton hunts the pack himself, assisted by a very powerful auxiliary in the person of Viscount Chetwynd. These gentlemen start with their otter spears ere the day breaks, and at half-past five in the morning they may be seen two or three times a week wending their way on foot along the banks of the river, in pursuit of the ‘ furry varmint.’ The pack has had some very excellent runs, one of which continued a distance of twenty-five miles, having been found in the river Cherwell, near to Flights Mill, and hunted through all the turnings of that serpentine stream to his lodgings at Watereaton, where he took refuge amongst the old willows, and succeeded in baffling his pursuers; subsequently to which a capital day’s sport was afforded at North Aston. The hounds found near the mill, and went away in the direction of Nell Bridge; but twisting into the Adderbury Brook, after a chase of about eight miles, he was come up with, when some hard fighting occurred, in which a small terrier, bred by Mr Peyton, greatly signalized himself, being much punished, as indeed were all the hounds, from the determined ferocity of the otter, which was ultimately speared by Mr Peyton. It turned out to be a fine bitch otter, weighing upwards of twenty pounds, and, from the appearance of the dugs, it was conjectured that some of her family were in the vicinity, and consequently the hounds were again laid on, and finally succeeded in killing four fine cubs, weighing on the average eleven pounds each. The farmers of the neighbourhood who were up at the death were quite overjoyed, and nothing would satisfy them but the immediate cutting up of one of the cubs ‘ à la reynard, ’ and a distribution of the pads, head, and body, amongst them. It is said that these amphibious fish-merchants, when suffering hunger by reason of a scarcity of fish, will boldly in the season carry away young lambs; so that the farmers, independently of their stream being pilfered of fish, often sustain a more substantial injury, and therefore are much gratified at the opportunity now afforded of in some degree thinning the numbers of these voracious gluttons.”

The otter-hound is not a distinct kind of hound, the strong rough-haired harrier answering the purpose best, provided he will hunt a low scent, as the game shows no small sagacity, as well as circumspection, in guarding against assault from man or dog. In 1796, on the river Worse, near Bridgenorth, Shropshire, four otters were killed, one of which stood three, another four hours before the hounds; and in 1804 the otter-hounds of Mr Coleman of Leominster, Herefordshire, killed an otter in a mill pond, which is said to have weighed thirty-four pounds and a half; supposed to have been eight years old, and to have consumed a ton of fish or flesh annually, for the last five years. It will be observed, in the list of hounds, there are three more packs kept in England for the purpose of hunting the otter.

Hare-hunting claims precedence of fox-hunting in the sporting chronology of Great Britain, and we believe of all other countries, inasmuch as a hare has always been esteemed excellent eating, and a fox the rankest of carrion. We gather from Xenophon that it was practised before his day, and he wrote fully upon it above three centuries before Christ, both hounds and nets being then used in the pursuit. Neither can we marvel at hare-hunting being the favourite diversion in all nations given to sporting where the use of the horse in the field had not become common. But we will go a point farther than this, and assert, that [7:11:750] how inferior soever may be the estimation in which hunting the hare is held in comparison with hunting the fox, no animal of the chase affords so much true hunting as she does, which was the opinion of the renowned Mr Beckford.

In our description of the modern harrier (see article Hound), we have termed him the fox-hound in miniature; and we may apply the simile to hare-hunting, which now, as long as the chase lasts, greatly resembles fox-hunting, only on a minor scale. In the modern system, there is no tracking to the seat with the one, any more than dragging up to the kennel with the other; but both animals are now chiefly stumbled upon by accident, and instantly fly for their lives. With the system of hunting also has the kind of hound been altered; there being now no longer occasion for that nice distinction of scent which was wanting to be a match for the windings and doublings a hare was able to make in her course when hunted by the slow and fastidious southern hound, and which was essential to the finding her at all, in countries where hares were scarce, by the perplexing means of a very cold trail. In fact, we do not think we can better elucidate the gradual but great change that has taken place in this highly popular and ancient British diversion, than by the following extracts from a very old work upon sporting called the Gentleman’s Recreation, published nearly two centuries back.

“Your large, tall, and big hounds,” says the author, “called and known by the name of the deep-mouthed or southern-mouthed hounds, are heavy and slow, and fit for woodlands and hilly countreys; they are of deep mouths, and swift spenders; they are generally higher behind than before, with thick and short legs, and are generally great of body and head, and are most proper for such as delight to follow them on foot, as stop-hunting, as some call it; but by most it is termed ‘ hunting under the pole that is, they are brought to that exactness of command, that, in their hottest scent and fullest chase, if one but step before them, or hollow, or but hold up or throw before them the hunting pole, they will stop at an instant, and hunt in full cry after you at your own pace, until you give them encouragement by the word of command; which much adds to the length of the sport and pleasure of the hunters, so that a course oft-times lasts five or six hours.

“Opposite to the deep-mouthed or southern hound are the long and slender hounds called the fleet or northern hound, which are very swift, as not being of so heavy a body, nor hath such large ears: these will exercise your horses, and try their strength; they are proper for open, level, and champain countreys, where they may run in view and full speed; for they hunt more by the eye than the nose, and will run down the game in an hour, and sometimes in less; that is, a hare ; but the fox will exercise them better and longer.

“Between these two extremes there are a middle sort of dogs, which partake of both their qualities, as to strength and swiftness, in a reasonable proportion; they are generally bred by crossing the strains, and are excellent in such countreys as are mixt, viz. some mountains, some enclosures, some plains, and some wood-lands; for they will run through thick and thin, neither need you help them over hedges, as you are often forced to do by others.

“A true right-shaped deep-mouthed hound should have a round thick head, wide nostrils, open and rising upwards, his ears large and thin, hanging lower than his chaps; the flews of his upper lips should be longer than those of his nether chaps; the chine of his back great and thick, strait and strong, and rather bending out than inclining in; his thighs well trussed; his haunches large; his fillets round and large; his tail or stern strong set on, waxing taperwise towards the top; his hair under his belly rough and long; his legs large and lean; his feet dry and hard, with strong claws and high knuckles. In the whole, he ought to be of so justa symmetry, that when he stands level you may not discern which is highest, his fore or hinder parts.

“For the northern or fleet hound, his head and nose ought to be slenderer and longer, his back broad, his belly gaunt, his joynts long, and his ears thicker and shorter; in a word, he is in all parts slighter made, and framed after the mould of a greyhound.

“By crossing these breeds as aforesaid, you may bring your kenel to such a composure as you think fit, every man’s fancy being to be preferred; and you know the old saying,

‘ So many men, so many minds, So many hounds, so many kinds.’”

In proof of our assertion, that there is more of true hunting with harriers than with any other description of hounds, we shall point out a few of the difficulties which they have to overcome. In the first place, a hare, when found, generally describes a circle in her course, which is in itself not only more difficult to follow, but it naturally brings her upon her foil, which is the greatest trial for hounds. Secondly, the scent of the hare is weaker than that of any other animal we hunt; and, unlike some, it is always the worse the nearer she is to her end; which accounts for its being better, and lasting longer, when going to her seat, than when running. There is scarcely any scent from a hare until she is in motion; therefore hounds constantly draw over her; and, of course, according to the length of time she has been gone to her seat after feeding, will be the difficulty of hunting her by the trail. In fact, at the most distant part of her previous night or morning’s walk, the most tender-nosed hound in a pack will be scarcely able to own the scent at all. But the grand puzzler of all is, when hounds get upon the counter trail, about the middle of a hare’s work, and the scent lies so equal that it is most difficult to distinguish heel from chase. No such difficulty as this can occur in any other description of hunting, and can only be obviated by the skill and experience of the huntsman in his notice of the working of his hounds. But although this difficulty is alluded to by almost all writers on the chase, we know not where to look for directions to the huntsman at the critical moment. It is true, Mr Daniel, in his Rural Sports, says, “To find out this, see if your hounds challenge counter; if they double, and carry it on counter, they will soon signify their error by opening singly.” We conceive there is some reason in this remark, but it will not always avail. Hounds, harriers in particular, are fond of a scent; and if they cannot carry it forward, they will turn and hunt it heel; and here it is that the judgment of a huntsman turns to account. One with a keen eye, and a perfect knowledge of his hounds, may be able to unravel this mystery perhaps six times out of ten; but it is in no man s power to be sure of doing it. His chief guide is in the cry of his pack at this time, which will slacken instead of getting fuller if the scent be heel, as the experience of old hounds adds to their natural instinct the faculty of judging whether it is leading them to their prey or from it.

The great perfection of modern harriers is the head they carry over a country, the result of the pains now taken in breeding them of the same size and character; whereas, upon the old system, which was all for the pot, the chief dependence was upon a few couples out of the whole pack, the rest being wheresoever they liked or were able to be in the chase. On the other hand, it may be said modern harriers have not the nose and patience of the old sort, which perhaps they have not; but what they may lose in those respects, they more than gain in another, viz. by being nearer to their game in chase, and, [7:11:751]by pressing her, not allowing her to make more than half the work she was able to do when pursued by slow hounds. In fact, the want of speed, and tedious exactness, of the southern hound, rendered the warmest scent, after a short time, cold; which may be proved from the fact of an hour being the average time of killing a hare, in former days, with a good scent, and from three to four with what is called a “fair," a “holding,” or a “half scent.” For our own part, speaking as fox-hunters, yet abandoning all prejudices against a sport it is too much the fashion to hold cheap, we consider that, to any man who is a real lover of hunting, that is, of seeing hounds do their work, and do that work well, a twenty minutes burst over a good country, with a well-bred pack of harriers of the present stamp and fashion, affords a high treat. To see them to advantage, however, it should be over a country in which the fields are large, and the fences stone walls, like those of Oxfordshire or Gloucestershire; for harriers, being for the most part obliged to meuse, strong hedges prevent their carrying a head in chase, which is the chief beauty in all hunting.

Somerville has these appropriate lines On the adaptation of hounds to their game :—

“A different hound for every chase

Select with judgment; nor the timorous hare O’er matched, destroy; but leave that vile offence To the mean, murderous, coursing crew, intent on blood and spoil.”

Harriers should not be too large, certainly not more than eighteen inches high, or, by their speed, and, if good withal, they will much overmatch their game; but in a good and open country there should never be less than from eighteen to twenty couples in the field. A strong pack not only adds to the respectability of the thing (at all events, a small one greatly detracts from it), but, in our opinion, more hounds are wanting to pursue an animal that runs short, than one which, like the fox, generally makes for a distant point. The opinion of Mr Beckford is in opposition to us here. He says, “the fewer hounds you have, the less you foil the ground, which you will find a great hindrance to your hunting but it must here be remarked, that in the preceding sentence, this eminent sportsman speaks of the difficulty of getting a strong pack of harriers to run well together; a difficulty which no doubt existed in his day, but is totally overcome in the best hare-hunting establishments of ours. Indeed, we once heard a sportsman declare, and he was a sportsman who had hunted in all the best countries in England, that he had never seen a chase quite complete from end to end, not a single hound being out of place, until he saw it with a pack of harriers over the Cotswold Hills.

The following passage from Beckford is worthy of his pen, and should be strictly observed by all masters of harriers :—“Harriers, to be good, must be kept to their own game. If you run fox with them, you spoil them. Hounds cannot be perfect unless used to one scent and to one style of hunting. Harriers run fox in so different a style from hare, that it is of great disservice to them when they return to hare again. It makes them wild, and teaches them to skirt. The high scent which a fox leaves, the straightness of his running, the eagerness of the pursuit, and the noise that generally accompanies it, all contribute to spoil a harrier.” We conclude that the writer here alludes to hunting wild foxes, which is now very rarely done with a pack of harriers, at least in a country near to which foxhounds are kept. No master of harriers would do it, who wishes his pack to be perfect; and there are other reasons for his not doing it, which it is unnecessary to mention. But the very best understanding now generally exists between masters of fox-hounds and masters of harriers; and it is a common practice of such of the latter as reside in a fox-hunting district, to await the publishing of the foxhunting fixtures before they make their own.

The following hints may be useful in hunting the hare. First, respecting the hare herself; hares breed from February to the end of harvest, and are said to live seven years. The buck affords the best sport, particularly in the spring, when, after one or two rings, he often goes straight on end for several miles. Hence the proverb, “as wild as a March hare.” Some persons pretend to distinguish the sex upon the seat; at all events, the head of the buck is shorter, the shoulders redder, and the ears redder, than those of a doe; he is also larger, and his hind parts are of a lighter colour. If the claws are smooth and sharp, and the ears tear easily, the hare is young.

The difficulty of finding a hare by the eye is well known. It is an art greatly facilitated by experience, although not one person in ten who attempts it succeeds in it. But here we recognize the Hand that furnished her with such means for her security; as, from the delicacy of her flesh, she is the prey of every carnivorous animal, and her means of defence are confined only to her flight. In going to her form, she consults the weather, especially the wind, lying always, when she can, with her head to face it. After harvest, hares are found in all situations; in stubble fields, hedgerows, woods, and brakes; but when the leaves fall, they prefer lying upon open ground, and particularly on a stale fallow, that is, one which has been some time ploughed; as likewise after frost, and towards the spring of the year. In furze, or gorse, they lie so close as to allow themselves nearly to be trodden upon, rather than quit their form. The down or upland-bred hare shows best sport; that bred in a wet, marshy district, the worst, although the scent from the latter may be the stronger. If a hare, when not viewed away, runs slowly at first, it is generally a sign that she is an old one, and likely to afford sport; but hares never run so well as when they do not know where they are. Thus, trapped hares, turned out before hounds, almost invariably run straight on end, and generally till they can run no longer; and they generally go straight in a fog.

The chase of the hare has been altered, and rendered less difficult in some degree, by the improvement of the hound used in it. In the first place, she is now so pressed by the pace at which she is hunted, that she has not time, when first started, to visit the works of the preceding night; nor is she, from the same cause, so likely to run her foil. But when making out her foil, hounds are now not let to puzzle over it as formerly, but, if it be not quickly done, are rated forward by a whipper-in, to make good the head; and if that do not succeed, to make it good round the fences. Formerly, when hounds were at fault, the cast was made in a small circle to begin with, and then their huntsman tried wide; whereas they now generally, and especially if the game is supposed to be not far before them, make a wide cast at first, and then contract the circle if the wide cast fails. There is reason in this; for if the hare is on, the wide cast will cross her; and if she is not, she has most likely squatted. The old system was, “avoid a view, if possible.” The modern one rather encourages a view, but no holloaing; for as hares regulate their speed in great measure by the cry of hounds, they are less apt to have recourse to shifts when the cry bursts upon them at once. In fact, to suit the taste of the day, which is to have every thing that moves, fast, it was necessary that the greater part of the system of hunting the hare should be changed. It used to be insisted upon, that harriers should never be lifted as long as they can possibly carry a scent; and,Beckford says, “a hare is not fairly hunted unless the pack be left almost entirely to themselves; that they should follow her every step she takes, as well over greasy fallows as through large flocks of sheep; nor should they be cast, but when nothing can [7:11:752]be done without it.” This may have been all very well when gentlemen followed hounds on foot, or were content to be some hours killing one hare; or for Mr Beckford himself, who (although he admits having bred an infinity of harriers before he could get a pack to please him) thought hare-hunting should be taken as a ride after breakfast, to get an appetite to dinner.

But we have reason to believe, if a master of harriers of the present day wished to show his pack to advantage, and could have a choice of a run to display them, he would say, “Give me twenty-five minutes in all ; the first fifteen a severe burst; then a fault, well hit off; and the remaining ten without a turn.” But, it may be asked, wherefore the fault? We reply, because, although the speed of well-bred harriers, for a certain time, if not quite equal to that of fox-hounds, is too much for most hares, as well as for most horses that follow them, yet, after that certain time, say fifteen minutes, wind and power begin to fail, and a short check is useful. Besides, the ability of a pack, in quickly recovering a fault, is more than a counterbalance to their coming to a fault at all, which, with a short-running animal, as the hare is, it is often difficult to avoid, nay, rather to be looked for indeed in every field.

The difference in the terms used in hare-hunting and fox-hunting is comprised in a few words :—Harriers are cast off, in the morning; fox-hounds throw off. The hare is found by the quest or trail; the fox by the drag. The hare is on her form or seat; the fox in his kennel. The young hare is a leveret; a fox a year old is a cub. The view holloa of the hare is, “Gone away ;” of a fox, “Tallyho.” The hare doubles in chase; the fox heads back, or is headed. The harrier is at fault; the fox-hound at check. The hare is pricked by the foot; the fox is balled or padded. The hare squats; the fox lies down, stops, or hangs in cover; the “who-whoop” signifies the death of each.

Our ideas of a complete pack of fox-hounds are very soon expressed. For four days’ hunting in the week there should be not much less than sixty couples of working hounds; nor do we think more are necessary, as hounds, like horses, are always better and sounder when in regular work. For three days in the week, forty couples are enough. They should have at their head not only a huntsman, but also a master, each of whom knows his business, and one clever whipper-in, and another as clever as you can get him. It is not necessary, because it is not feasible, that they should all be good drawers of covers; but it is absolutely necessary to perfection that they should all get to work as soon as a fox is found, and prove themselves true on the line their game has gone. As to their being quite free from riot on all days, and on all occasions, the man is not yet born wΛo can say with truth, “my hounds never run riot.” Nature is seldom extinguished; and as Aesop’s damsel, turned to a woman from a cat, behaved herself very well till the mouse appeared, so will hounds occasionally break away upon riot, particularly when out of sight of the servants, in large covers, or when disappointed by a long blank draw. We conceive a pack of fox-hounds entitled to be called “steady from riot,” if they will bear being put to the following test :—If, when at fault for their fox, in the middle of a large field, a hare gets up in view, and not a hound stirs, nor attempts to break away after her; and this without a word being said to caution them. But it is in chase, with only a holding scent, that a pack of fox-hounds display their excellence. In such a case as this there must be checks; and it being ten to one against their fox running straight, because they cannot press him, now is the time to see them work. Do they carry a good head when the scent is a-head and serves them well? Are they cautious when it does not? And do they turn short when the game has turned right or left, or is gone back? Are they careful not to overrun the scent, and will they stand pressing to a certain degree by the horsemen? But having overrun it, do they stop directly, and make their own cast? Should that fail, do they come quickly to horn or holloa—to their huntsman’s cast? Do they fling for a scent when their huntsman lifts them to points, and not attempt to flash, or break away, without a scent? When the scent serves well, do they not only carry a good head over a country, but, as their game is sinking, does the head become better? If they do all this, and have speed and stoutness withal, they are equal to any fox in any country, and are worth a thousand sovereigns to a sportsman.

The number of fox-hounds taken into the field depends chiefly upon country; more being required in that which is woodland, than for an open champaign, or for our enclosed grass districts, such as Leicestershire. Eighteen couples are generally considered as sufficient for the latter; and the strongest woodlands do not require more than from twenty-two to twenty-five couples; and we consider the latter the more common number, in the field, of any pack in any country;

The average speed of fox-hounds is estimated at ten miles, point blank, over a country, with a good scent, in one hour; that is to say, making allowance for deviations from the straight line, hounds seldom go more than ten miles, from point to point, in that space of time. Mr Beckford has a very judicious remark on this part of his subject. “That pack,” he writes, “may be said to go the fastest that can run ten miles the soonest, notwithstanding the - hounds separately may not run so fast as many others. A pack of hounds, considered in a collective body, go fast in proportion to the excellence of their noses and the head they carry; as that traveller gets soonest to his journey’s end who stops least upon the road. Some hounds that I have hunted with would creep all through the same hole, though they might have leaped the hedge; and would follow one another in a string, as true as a team of cart-horses. I had rather see them, like the horses of the sun, all abreast.”

There is nothing in the history of our domestic sports and pastimes to inform us correctly as to the date of the first regularly-established pack of fox-hounds kept in England. Neither the holy prioress of St Alban’s, Dame Juliana Bannes, Markham, nor any of the very old writers on such subjects, are able to satisfy us on this point; but, on the authority of the Rev. William Chafiu, in his Anecdotes respecting Cranbourn Chase, the first real steady pack of fox-hounds established in the western part of England was by Thomas Fownes, Esq. of Stepleton, in Dorsetshire, about the year 1730. “They were,” says the author, who wrote in 1818, “as handsome, and fullyas complete in every respect, as the most celebrated packs of the present day. The owner, meeting with some worldly disappointments, was obliged to dispose of them; and they were sold to Mr Bowes, in Yorkshire, the father of the late Lady Strathmore, at an immense price for those days. They were taken into Yorkshire by their own attendants, and, after having been viewed and much admired in their kennel, a day was fixed for making trial of them in the field, to meet at a famous hare-cover near. When the huntsman came with his hounds in the morning, he discovered a great number of sportsmen, who were riding in the cover, and whipping the furzes as for a hare; he therefore halted, and informed Mr Bowes that he was unwilling to throw off his hounds until the gentlemen had retired, and ceased the slapping of whips, to which his hounds were not accustomed, and he would engage to find a fox in a few minutes, if there was one there. The gentlemen sportsmen having obeyed the orders given by Mr Bowes, the huntsman, taking the wind of the cover, threw off h⅛ hounds, which immediately began to feather, and soon got upon a [7:11:753]drag into the cover, and up to the fox’s kennel, which went off close before them, and, after a severe burst over a fine country, was killed, to the great satisfaction of the whole party. They then returned to the same cover, not one half of it having been drawn, and very soon found a second fox, exactly in the same manner as before, which broke cover immediately over the same fine country; but the chase was much longer; and, in course of it, the fox made its way into a nobleman’s park, I believe Lord Darlington’s, which was full of all sorts of riot, and it had been customary to stop the hounds before they could enter it, which the best-mounted sportsmen attempted to do, but in vain; the hounds topped the highest fences, ran through herds of deer and a number of hares, without taking the least notice of them; ran in to their fox, and killed him some miles beyond the park; and it was the unanimous opinion of the whole hunt that it was the finest run ever known in that country. An ample collection of fieldmoney was made for the huntsman, much beyond his expectation; and he returned to Stepleton in better spirits than he left it, and told his story as above related, in which we must allow for some little exaggeration, very natural on such an occasion. This pack was probably the progenitors of the very fine ones now in the north. Before this pack was raised in Dorsetshire, the hounds which hunted in the chase hunted all the animals promiscuously, except the deer, from which they were necessarily made steady, otherwise they would not have been suffered to hunt at all in it.” We have good reason to believe Lord Yarborough’s fox-hounds, at Brocklesby Hall, Lincolnshire, were established as far back as the year 1700. The present huntsman and his late father hunted them more than fifty years.

The Fox.

The fox makes a conspicuous figure in the natural history of animals; still, in some respects, his character has been over-rated and exaggerated. He is a native of all temperate regions; and although we read of the cur, the greyhound, and the mastiff fox, we consider a fox as a fox, the difference in size, colour, &c. being dependent on either climate or food. It is true, they are larger in some particular parts of England than in others; and it is generally believed, that such as are what sportsmen call “stub-bred foxes,” that is, bred above, and not below ground, are the largest. It is in*this sole instance that the habits of the fox differ from those of the wolf, to whose genus he belongs; the she wolf never bringing forth her young, as the fox does, under ground. But although the general conformation of the fox is the same as that of the wolf, his external form has a greater resemblance to the dog, with whose character also he closely assimilates, when domesticated, in expressions of affection, of anger, or of fear. When minutely examined, and particularly in relation to his predatory life, and, consequently, the dangers to which he is exposed, he will be found to be abundantly endowed by nature with the instinctive faculties requisite for such a life, in addition to the most elegant form an animal of his size is capable of. Foxes copulate in the winter months, and of course bring forth in the spring, on an average perhaps half a dozen cubs at a litter, born blind like the dog; but the period of each depends on the mildness or severity of the winter. Excepting during the season of sexual desire, the fox is a solitary, not a gregarious animal, for the most part passing the day in sleep, and the night in prowling after food.

The food of the fox is extremely variable; indeed, very few things that have or have had life come amiss to him: but we have reason to believe that rabbits, hares, poultry, partridges, and pheasants, with their eggs, are his favourite repasts; and when these are not to be had, he contents himself with field-mice, black-beetles, snails, and frogs. That he can even exist solely on the latter, was proved a few years ago, by the circumstance of a fox-hound and a fox having been found at the bottom of a dry well, into which they had fallen; the hound had perished from hunger, but the fox had supported his life on frogs. Of those animals and birds which we call game they are without doubt destroyers—of pheasants, it is asserted, twenty-five per cent.; but how it happens that they have been charged with feeding on grapes, we are, as far as our own experience directs us, quite at a loss to determine. The fact, however, is stated by several accredited writers, and has given birth to the fable of the fox and the grapes, the moral of which is a severe rebuke to an envious person who “hates the excellence he cannot reach.” Aristophanes, in his Equites, compares soldiers devastating a country to foxes destroying a vineyard; and Galen (De Aliment. lib. iii. c. 2) tells us, that hunters ate the flesh of foxes in autumn, because they were grown fat with feeding on grapes. There are also two lines in Theocritus (Idyl. E. V. 112) which admit of the following version :—

I hate those brush-tailed foxes, that each night Spoil Mico’s vineyards with their deadly bite.

He is likewise accused of eating human flesh, and, we have reason to believe, accused justly. In addition to the sentence pronounced by David, in the sixty-third psalm, that the enemies of God and himself should be “a portion for foxes,” we have the following interesting historical anecdote. When the famous Messenian general Aristomenes was thrown into the Ceadas (a deep chasm into which criminals were hurled) by the Lacedaemonians, his life is said to have been preserved by following a fox that was feeding on a dead body, to the aperture at which he had entered, and through which, after enlarging it with his hands, he himself escaped.

But although the subtilty of the fox has been proverbial from the earliest times; so much so, that our Saviour himself called the tetrarch Herod “a ŕòx,” by way of signifying the refinement of his policy; we do not perceive that, with the exception of a timid prudence on breaking cover, he shows more sagacity in his endeavours to baffle his pursuers than the hare is known to do, if indeed so much. To “catch a weasel asleep,” is a typical designation of an impossibility; but foxes are frequently surprised in their naps by hounds drawing upon them, up wind, particularly when gorged with food. In the faculty of natural instinct, however, they are vastly superior to hares, and equal in this respect to the dog; there being well-attested instances of their being sent, marked, upwards of fifty miles in a bag, and, having escaped being killed by hounds before which they were turned out, being retaken in their native woods. But it is in his last moments, when seized by hounds, that the superiority of ’character in the fox over the hare exhibits itself. He dies in silence; but he sells his life dearly; for, revengefully seizing upon the first hound that approaches him, he only relinquishes his hold with the last gasp.

When first the fox was hunted in Great Britain, he was considered merely as a beast of prey, and killed in any way in which he could be got at, generally by being caught in nets and pitfalls, or killed at earth by terriers; his scent not being considered ŕàvourable to hounds by our forefathers. Although they admitted it to be hotter at hand than that of the hare, their ŕàvourite object of pursuit, they believed it to be sooner dissipated; but perhaps the real cause of their objection was, in the general inequality of speed and endurance in the hounds of their days and a really wild fox; and ŕbxes then were undoubtedly stouter, and able to run much greater distances from point to point, than they no tv do, tv hen they have comparatively so short [7:11:754]a distance to travel for their food, as well as being often over-fed. These animals, then, being always destroyed when an opportunity offered, were of course generally scarce; which, added to the great extent of woods and other fastnesses with which England then abounded, accounts for the fact of hunting the fox, unless as a beast of prey, not being in vogue until these objections were removed. But the fox was ever considered as a mischievous animal, and, in one signal instance, is said to have been made an engine of mischief to a vast extent, in carrying fire and flame into the standing corn of the rebellious Philistines. A solution of this account, however, on natural principles, being difficult, it is pretty generally admitted that a mistake in the translation has given rise to it.

As the preservation of the fox is now more an object in Great Britain than his destruction, it may not be amiss to observe, that a few links of an iron chain, such as an old plough-trace, or a small piece of red cloth, suspended near to the spot on which a hen-pheasant sits, is a certain protection from foxes, of herself, her eggs, or her brood.

It is asserted by sportsmen of experience, that the scent of foxes varies with the animal; and that a vixen fox which has laid up (brought forth) her cubs is nearly devoid of scent.

Huntsman.

In the lower ranks of life there are callings which require the exercise of skill and judgment to the very utmost of their extent; and we know of none that comes more directly within this class than that of a huntsman does, of whom it may be said, that in all his operations he has not only to exercise his mental faculties at every step he goes, when unravelling the intricacies of the chase, but actually to tread a path nearly unknown to human reason. Fimus oratores, nascimur poetae, is a good definition of the constitutional qualifications of a first-rate poet, at all events of the difficulty of becoming one; and really when those of a huntsman are all summed up, if the life of man be not too short, years of toilsome labour appear to be scarcely sufficient to evince, even to a man of talent, a perfect knowledge of his art. Let us first hear what Beckford says of him, and then we will offer our own sentiments on the subject, which vary little from those entertained by this great authority on all matters of the chase. “A good huntsman,” says he, “should be young, strong, and active, bold and enterprising; fond of the diversion, and indefatigable in the pursuit of it; he should be sensible and good tempered; he ought also to be sober; he should be exact, civil, and cleanly; he should be a good horseman, and a good groom; his voice should be strong and clear; and he should have an eye so quick as to perceive which of his hounds carries the scent, when all are running; and should have so excellent an ear, as always to distinguish the foremost hounds when he does not see them.· He should be quiet, patient, and without conceit. He should let his hounds alone when they can hunt, and he should have genius to assist them when they cannot” It is scarcely necessary to observe, that Mr Beckíòrd is here speaking of a huntsman to fox-hounds, his demands on the harehunter being somewhat more moderate; and yet the difficulties he has to combat with are more than obscurely acknowledged. Aware that practice is the key to excellence in every art, and that experience is the great mistress of all human knowledge, he requires age, with its experience, to fit the hare-huntsman for his office, and to be a match for the wiles of the hare; very ludicrously adding, that, “for patience, he should be a very Grizzle.”

M e do not think we exaggerate when we say, that the picture here drawn of a clever huntsman may, in one degree (of bodily endowments at least), be termed a near approach to human perfection; nor do we hesitate in adding our conviction, that if to the attributes here given him are joined a comprehensive mind and a humane heart, nothing is wanting to make it complete. As the chase is said to be the image of war, “but without its guilt,” let us suppose Mr Beckford had been drawing the character of a soldier, and not a huntsman. Could he have given him higher qualifications than a clear head, nice observation, a good constitution, undaunted courage, a powerful voice, an accurate ear, and a lynx’s eye, together with a quick perception, endowed with quick impulses for acting, so necessary to each? That he should be “fond of his profession,” and “indefatigable in the pursuit of it “sober and exact,” “sensible,” and “good tempered ?” It is not necessary that either a huntsman or a soldier should be a man of letters; some of the best among the former have been scarcely able to read; and there have been but few Caesars who could fight and write; but a good understanding is put to the test by both the one and the other; and although we do not mean to place the servile situation of a huntsman on a level with the honourable profession of the soldier, each requires, in a high degree, a good, sound understanding, and a manly exertion of talent.

But the office of huntsman to fox-hounds is not always intrusted to servile hands. It has long been the ambition of masters of packs to hunt their own hounds; and although the fashion has become more prevalent within the last thirty years than it was in the earlier days of foxhunting, yet we could bring forward some instances of what are called gentlemen-huntsmen of pretty long standing. His Grace the Duke of Cleveland, and Sir Richard Puleston, Bart, each hunted his own hounds for nearly forty years; and the late William Leche, Esq. of Carden-Hall, Cheshire, was his own huntsman for an equally long period. Coming next to them in chronological order, stand Messrs Ralf Lambton, Musters, Thomas Assheton Smith, Lord Segrave, Sir Bellingham Graham, Bart., Mr Osbaldeston, Mr Nicol, the Earl of Kintore, Mr Smith, late of the Craven, the Honourable Grantley Berkeley, and several more of a more recent date. There can be no doubt that no man enjoys hunting to perfection equally with him who hunts his own hounds; nor can there be any reason assigned why an educated gentleman should not excel, in any ardent and highly scientific pursuit, an uneducated servant; nevertheless, we do not think that, throughout the fox-hunting world in general, gentlemen-huntsmen have been so popular as might have been expected; and in some countries that are hunted by subscription, an exception is taken against the master of the pack being the huntsman. That it is a very laborious office when efficiently executed, both in the kennel and the field, is well known to those who have filled it; but, labor ipse voluptas, we have seen a pains-taking zeal displayed in the master which we have too often seen wanting in the servant; and we could name a nobleman who used frequently to tell his huntsman, when drawing for his second fox, that he was “thinking more of his dinner than of hunting·”

In the earliest days of English hunting, gentlemen huntsmen were in high estimation; and a reference to Domesday-book will show that Waleran, huntsman to William the Conqueror, possessed no less than fifteen manors in Wiltshire, eight in Dorsetshire, together with several in Hampshire; and his name occurs on the list of tenants in capite in other counties. The same venerable record of antiquity describes the extensive possessions of other huntsmen, bearing the names of Croc, Godwin, Willielmus, gentlemen of consideration in those times, in which, according to Froissart, the ardour of the chase was carried to a pitch since unequalled by the Norman lords, some of them having kept sixteen hundred dogs, and a proportion [7:11:755]able numoer of horses, for the chase.^[2. See Froissart, tom. iv. c. 27∙ ] But we may go still farther back, to a very barbarous age, for the respect in which huntsmen have been held by kings and legislators. The temperate but brave Agesilaus, and even the luxurydestroying Lycurgus, provided for the bountiful entertainment of their huntsmen on their return from the chase; a pursuit which they believed to be so agreeable to the gods, that they offered the first fruits of their sports to Diana.

The Duties of a Huntsman.

The situation of huntsman to a pack of fox-hounds is one of great responsibility, and, if the breeding as well as hunting of them be left to him, a very arduous undertaking. Nor does it end here. There is great call for judgment in feeding hounds to answer every purpose, such as long draws, severe days, and at the same time to go the pace without showing distress, and to come home at night with their sterns up, and looking fresh. Here variety of constitution increases the difficulty; for, to please the eye, hounds should look level in their condition, as well as even in point of size. One hound will not bear to have his belly more than half filled; another will not fill his when he may; and still each must be made equal in strength and wind to the other, to stand hard work and go the pace without distress. A huntsman must have a very watchful eye over their condition, which will be effected by work and weather; and he must be pathologist enough to foresee and provide against the alterations which such circumstances produce. He has need also to be a physiologist, to enable him to exercise a sound judgment in breeding his hounds after a certain form and fashion, which are absolutely essential to their doing well, and at the same time pleasing the eye. Then look at him in the field, with a hundred eyes upon him, and a hundred tongues to canvass all his acts. Here he should be a philosopher.

In the Field.

A huntsman is expected to bring his hounds to the cover side in a high state of condition, at all seasons of the year. They should be seen quietly grouped about his horse’s heels, when he is waiting for the hour of throwing off, without a whip stirring, or even an angry word said to them. This is a time when they are often subject to the inspection of strangers, and a first impression goes a great way. When the master gives the word to draw, they should approach the cover at a gentle trot, one whipper-in riding in their front; and when within about a stone’s throw, they may dash into it with as much spirit as they like. Not a word need be said by way of caution, unless it appears to be especially called for, when “gently, there,” by the first whipper-in, and one smack of his whip, will generally have the desired effect. But we like to see the huntsman alive at this moment, as well as his hounds. Homer compares hounds cheered by their huntsman, to troops encouraged by a skilful general; and doubtless there is a similarity in the effect. Putting hounds out of the question, there is something very cheering to the field In the “cheering holloa” of a huntsman, when encouraging his hounds to draw; and it also answers two good purposes. Should a hound get wide of the pack, or hang behind in the cover, or should any of the field be at a loss, which often happens in woodlands, the “pipe” of the huntsman is an unerring guide to all. How necessary is it, then, at all events how desirable, that, like Ajax, he should be βor ∣ s αγαθός, “ renowned for the strength of his voice,” and; we may add, for the melodiousness of it. He should likewise blow a horn well; and if he varies the blast, to make himself more intelligible to his hounds, he will find his advantage in it. We wonder this is not more practised than it is. Independently of the common recheat, why not have the “view horn” as well as the “view holloa ?” But too much horn, like vox et proeterea nihil, is bad, making hounds apt to disregard it; yet a huntsman would be sadly at a loss without it, not only in getting hounds away from cover and in chase, but in drawing large covers, in which they will occasionally get wide. Here a twang of the horn saves a huntsman’s voice in bringing them over to him. One short blast is sufficient.

“He gave his bugle-horn a blast, That through the woodlands echoed far and wide.”

The following observations on holloaing are from the pen of an old sportsman. They contain hints that it would often be advisable to profit by; and they apply not only to huntsmen, but to the field. “A general rule as to hallooing is, never to halloo unless you can give a good reason for so doing. A constant and indiscriminate use of the voice is blanicable in a huntsman; his hounds, by constantly hearing his voice, will soon learn to pay no more attention to it than they do to the singing of the lark, and they will not come to him when they are called. Some huntsmen, in making a cast, try that part of the ground where they can most conveniently ride, instead of that where it is most likely the fox is gone. Others ride on hallooing, without regarding their hounds, while making their cast; their own noise then prevents them from hearing their hounds, who often tak∈ the scent without their being aware of it.”

“No person should halloo that is not well forward. It signifies little what words you use, as a hound’s knowledge of language is confined to a view halloo, a call, and a rate: it is the tone of the voice, and not the words, that they understand; and hounds will always draw to the voice, if it be not a rate. This shows the impropriety of hallooing behind hounds. In running with good scent, if you are up with the pack, a cheering halloo does no harm; the hounds will not attend to it, and it is expressive of the pleasure of the hallooer. Never cap hounds with loud halloos to a bad scent; capping makes them wild and eager, and should never be done but when the scent is high. Hounds should be brought up gently to a cold scent.” Holloaing to hounds is often necessary, and highly useful when done with judgment; but the word “tallyho” loses many a good run; as, unless a fox is gone clear away from his cover, it occasions him to turn back often into the mouth of the hounds.

Dog Language.

It is true, no correspondence can subsist between beings whose natures are separated by a chasm so wide as that between rational and irrational animals; and it is with a view of adapting our meaning to the level W their understandings, that we generally address or converse with brutes in a silly unmeaning manner; which gave rise to the remark, that children, or men who act like children, have animals more immediately under their control than the philosopher who is replete with wisdom. But we may look farther into the subject than this. If the Almighty had not manifested some portion of his attributes by means which are on a level with the capacity of the human race, man must have remained for ever ignorant of his Maker. The power of language, however, between man and man, is prodigiously increased by the tone in which it is conveyed. The vagrant when he begs, the soldier when he gives the word of command, the senator when he delivers an oration, and the lover when he whispers a gentle tale to his mistress, all differ in the key in.which they speak; and it is thus that huntsmen and whippers-in make themselves [7:11:756]intelligible to bounds. They do not speak to them in an unmeaning manner, or after the manner of children; but in short and pithy sentences, every word of which is law. The method of doing this, however, admits of several degrees of excellence; but the huntsman who is endowed by nature with a-clear, sonorous voice, in a well-pitched key, and knows when to use it with effect, contributes greatly to the enthusiasm of fox-hunting, and no doubt to the success of it.

Without entering again into the wide range of hunting, we cannot do more than add a few maxims which may be observed by a huntsman in the field. In drawing for your fox, don’t be persuaded always to draw up wind. In the first place, you are in danger of chopping him; secondly, he is sure then to go down wind at starting; and, thirdly, you may drive him into a worse country, or from his point. When found, get after him as quickly as possible if you have a body of hounds with you; if not, you will have a better chance of sport if you can wait till the body come up. This is easily done by a twang of the horn, or a false holloa, if hounds are under good command, and the convenient opportunity be seized upon. Keep near to them in chase, with your eye on the body of the pack, as well as on such hounds as may be leading; the body are more certain to be right. Next to knowing where a fox is gone, is knowing where he is not gone; therefore, in your cast, always make good the head. This you will do for your satisfaction; but hounds are seldom at fault for the scent a-head,when the chase has been at all warm, that is, on a fair scenting day; for if the fox be gone forward, wherefore the fault? Good hounds will seldom or never leave a scent ahead, unless the ground be stained by sheep or cattle, or when the chase leads over dry ploughed land, hard and dry roads, &c. It is high odds that your fox has turned to the right or to the left; but although his point may be back, he cannot well run his foil, from the number of horsemen that are generally in the rear of fox-hounds. Recollect your first check is generally the most fatal to sport, and for these reasons: Your hounds are fresh, and perchance a little eager; they may have overrun the scent for some distance, owing to their being pressed by the horses, which are also at this time fresh; nor will they always get their heads down as soon as they should do, from the same exciting causes. Again, your check now generally arises from a short turn, the fox having been previously driven from his point, which he now resolves to make; and he will make it at all hazard at certain times. When your hounds first “throw up” (í. e. check), leave them alone if they can hunt; but, disregarding what the “old ones” say on this subject, as inapplicable to these fast times, don’t be long before you take hold of them, and assist them, if they cannot. We would not go from scent to view; yet hounds in these days that will not bear lifting are not worth having. But do all this quietly as well as quickly. Turn your horse’s head towards the line you think your fox is gone; and die first moment you see all their heads up, that is, if they do not hit him off, put your horn to your mouth for one blast or two, and trot away to still more likely points. If your pack will divide when casting, so much the better; but if they arc good for any thing, they will be making their own cast whilst you are making yours, by not keeping at your horse’s heels, but spreading as they go.

When you have hit upon his point, if a single hound goes off with a good scent, get the body to him as quickly as you can; but not so if the scent be not warm. In the latter case, your hounds will be in expectation of a fresh fox, and will be in a hurry; the hound that is forward will be lifted, and in all probability you will have to seek for the scent again. Go gently, and your hounds, if steady, will settle to it. Likewise, if, when at check, you are holloaed to a spot where a fox has been viewed, stand still, and say nothing at the moment the first two or three hounds throw their tongues. If you hurry the body on immediately, the scent will often be lost if the fox has been a few minutes gone. If it can be done, give your hounds the wind at a crisis like this. Again, when a fox has been viewed, and you go directly to holloa, do not take your hounds to the extreme distant point at which he was viewed, but a hundred yards behind it; and for this reason. If you take them to the extreme point, and they do not take up the scent at once, you have then to make your cast at a venture; whereas, if you lay them on at that distance behind it, you have somewhat of a guide to that extent, as to the line towards which you should draw them.

The following further hints may be serviceable, or at all events they relate to hounds at check. In trying back, hounds have this advantage. It is evident the fox has come the line, up to the point where the check occurred; and he must be gone either to the right or the left of it, or back. We make this observation, because so much has been said about the straight running of foxes, which is far from true; and the necessity of persevering in the cast a-head with the fox, and back, on the foil, with the hare. The more hounds spread, within reason, in this backward cast, the better will be the chance of making the check a short one. Again, if at check on a road, or foot-path (the latter not often run over by foxes), when you observe some of your best hounds failing to make it good, on one side of either, it is reasonable to suppose the fox is gone on the other. If your hounds check in a cover in the middle of a run, and the fox is viewed away from it, try and get your hounds together as much as you can in the short time that can be allowed for it, before you cap them to the scent. It generally ensures a good finish, from two obvious causes. First, hounds get fresh wind; and, secondly, they will have a better chance to carry a good head, which generally ends in blood, and in blood well earned; for the fox is more likely to stand longer, and go straighter, for not having been viewed by hounds when he broke. But the most difficult point for a huntsman to decide upon promptly is, when his pack divides, which division is on the hunted fox. If it happen in cover, his ear is his surest guide, as the cry is louder and stronger on a fresh-found fox, than on one which has been for some time on foot. If when out of cover your pack should split on two separate scents, you should get as near as you can to what you imagine to be the chase, giving view holloas every yard you go; also sending one of your whippers-in to stop the other hounds. Your choice will doubtless be directed by several circumstances. You will first look for your truest and best linehunting hounds, and next, to the points your first fox would be likely to make for; and if your choice fall upon the lot that are going farthest up the wind, the other will be more likely to hear them running; and, should they come to a check, to join cry again perhaps before a whipper-in can get to stop them.

To the above we add a few general rules. Don’t be dispirited at a succession of bad sport, for it is not within your control, good hounds and sport not being naturally co-existing circumstances. Be as zealous as you please in the field, but temper your zeal with judgment, and don’t weary your hounds by long draws, on days which bid defiance to sport. It was once justly observed, that those who seek pleasure from the chase must ask permission of heaven; and the case still remains the same. Hounds without a scent resemble a man running in the dark; neither can make head against such fearful obstructions; and on stormy days, with a very high wind, if you have influence with your master, persuade him to let you go home after the first failure. It is not generally known what mischief even one such day does to some hounds. Don’t set too high a value on blood, [7:11:757] unless well earned; it is the result of want of reflection alone that has set any value whatever upon it, when otherwise obtained. Mob a bad fox in a cover if you like; but never dig out a good one, unless your hounds have almost viewed him into a spout, and you can bolt him before the excitement subsides. Never break ground in a country belonging to another pack of hounds, nor dig for a fox in a moin earth in your own. Many a bitch fox, heavy with young, has been killed by this means in the spring, instead of the one that was hunted and marked to ground; and be assured that sportsmen in general do not estimate the goodness of a pack of hounds by the noses nailed against the kennel door. Lastly, keep your field back from pressing on your hounds in chase, and still more so when in difficulties, as well as you can; but don’t suffer your zeal to carry you too far on this point. Remember the apostolic precept, " be courteous.”

The modern annals of sporting contain the names and characters of several very eminent huntsmen, whose conduct and abilities would have done credit to any other situation of life to which it might have been their lot to have been called. Considering the responsibility of their office, the severity of their work, and the risks they run, they are not supposed to be too highly paid in wages, say on the average L.100 per annum, besides their board; but, from perquisites, such as annual presents from gentlemen who attend the hounds which they hunt, and drafted hounds sold to other packs, they may realize the like sum in addition.

The office of whipper-in is, in our opinion, thought more lightly of by the sporting world in general than it deserves to be; and, as we shall show, we have the great Beckford on our side. We never saw a steady pack of hounds without at least one good whipper-in, and we are quite sure we never shall; but we have seen many of these red-coated youths who might have been better employed at the plough-tail— who, like Cicero’s lawyer, belonged rather to the profession than the science. “If he has genius,” says Beckford, “he may show it in various ways ,∙ he may clap forward to any great earth that may by chance be open; he may sink the wind to holloo, or mob a fox when the scent fails; he may keep him off his foil; he may stop the tail hounds, and get them forward; and has it frequently in his power to assist the hounds without doing them any hurt, provided he has sense to distinguish where he is wanted most. Besides, the most essential part of fox-hunting, the making and keeping the pack steady, depends entirely upon him, as a huntsman should seldom rate, and never flog a hound. In short, I consider the first whipper-in as a second huntsman; and, to be perfect, he should be as capable of hunting the hounds as the huntsman himself. He should not be conceited, but contented to act an under part, except when circumstances may require that he should act otherwise; and the moment they cease, he must not fail to resume his former station.”

To the above excellent remarks we have very little to add. We only recommend, when a huntsman is casting his hounds, that a whipper-in should turn them to him al ways as gently as he can, and with little noise; by which means they will draw towards him, trying for the scent as they go; whereas loud and repeated rates and cracks of the whip make hounds fly to their huntsman at this time with their heads up. When they are drawing properly towards him, not a word should be said; a whipper-in riding outside of them will be sufficient.

It is scarcely necessary to say, a whipper-in, to be perfect, should be an accomplished horseman, as nothing requires a much firmer and nicer hand than the act of following a hound over open ground to flog him. A whipper-in, however, should always hit a hound first, and rate him afterwards, and be able to hit hard when occasion requires it. A riotous fox-hound cannot be trifled with, if he is to be cured of his evil ways; and let the lash fall heavily when necessary, but at no other time. Above all, let the whipper-in have an eye to a skirter: skirting is the least pardonable fault a hound can possess, because he is then deviating from his nature, and has not the force of impulse to plead, which the hound that runs riot has. (b. b. b. b.)