RIDING TO HOUNDS 79 



the opportunity of recovering his wind, while his death-warrant 

 and the details of his execution were being decided upon. 



Moral. Always snap a cap before you begin serious shoot- 

 ing ; it affords time for reflection to all parties concerned. 



The public mind has of late been greatly exercised by the 

 question of how to obtain an adequate and permanent supply 

 of the raw material in the way of horses for purposes of warfare. 



The question f how to procure the perfected ' and manu- 

 factured article in the shape of hunters is one of perennial inte- 

 rest to riders to hounds. ' Buy from the farmer in the hunt- 

 ing field, where you see what the animal can do and where 

 you can almost always get a fair trial,' is the idea which perhaps 

 naturally suggests itself, and is the advice usually given. 



No better plan could be adopted if only you can discover 

 in the hands of a farmer a horse combining all or most of the 

 qualities of which you are in search. Unfortunately there is a 

 very big 'If in the way. 'What we want to breed is a big 

 brown horse, what we usually get is a little chestnut filly,' said 

 a farmer who had paid some attention to breeding, and the 

 little chestnut fillies being in a ratio of something like 20 

 to i against the big brown horses, and taking the latter as 

 the type of our heart's desire, it is obvious that in the hunting 

 country of our choice or abode it is the merest chance if 

 we meet with one or two specimens, at the outside, in the 

 course of a season, and even these may not in all respects 

 satisfy our requirements. Few men have the means or incli- 

 nation to move about from "one hunting quarter to another, and 

 a man must light upon a land where the inhabitants are 

 singularly simple if as a stranger he can drop in and pick up 

 equine plums from under their noses. 



There are still several courses open to the would-be buyer. 

 He may, if a decided Home Ruler, and as such not over- 



1 The system of buying young ones and making them is here purposely left 

 untouched. Either by self or deputy it is a method within the reach of but 

 few people ; coming, moreover, rather under the head of ' breaking,' than of 

 ' riding to hounds,' it will be dealt with elsewhere. 



