116 MEMORIES OF THE SHIRES 



let them go, no matter how dry the ground may be 

 or how brightly the sun may shine. 



Hounds will always hunt a fox better that they 

 have settled to in covert and driven out. A cub 

 is much easier killed in the open. We seem to have 

 acquired the habit in the Shires of thinking that the 

 hunt servants must always be in the same field 

 with the hounds. 



In my humble opinion I think they would often 

 be much better left to themselves with the hunts- 

 man watching from a distance, that is, if the young 

 entry have learned to go to the cry. In some 

 rough provincial counties they have to watch the 

 pack at work from a distant hillside, or otherwise 

 follow them entirely by sound. 



Riding directly behind hounds, or too close on 

 the flanks, is, of course, wrong at any time of the 

 year ; but extra room should always be given during 

 cub-hunting. The master should look on his old 

 foxes as valuable assets for providing sport in the 

 season proper, and should not therefore knowingly 

 pursue them during cub-hunting. 



If, however, the pack do get away with an old 

 veteran, and run some distance before they can be 

 stopped, or before it is realized that it is no cub, I 

 think it is best in the interest of hounds to let them 

 continue. When this does happen the early bird 

 feels that he really has captured the worm, and he 

 is rewarded for many mornings of shivering at the 

 covert-side. These remarks were occasioned by 

 turning to my Field notes, and finding therein an 

 account of a gallop in October from Cream Gorse to 

 Quenby. Thirty-eight bright and brilliant minutes 

 across the best of Leicestershire, finishing with a 



