Hunting Lore 83 



Leicestershire the country for fox-hunting. To 

 the former, it is indebted for the depth and richness 

 of its soil — favourable to holding a scent ; and to 

 the latter, for the large size of its inclosures, for the 

 general practicability of its fences, for the greatest 

 portion of the land being old pasture, and for the 

 numerous gorse coverts made for the purpose of 

 breeding and preserving foxes. 



There is another circumstance also which gives 

 Leicestershire a decided advantage over other 

 countries ; and that is the few large coverts which 

 the better part of it contains, thereby affording such 

 room for sport, that if a fox once gets away, and is 

 a good one, a run [barring accidents] must be the 

 consequence. He has nowhere to hide his head — 

 he must fly for his life. Woodland foxes are 

 generally supposed to be better and stouter than 

 those bred above ground ; but every one who has 

 hunted in large coverts must be aware what an 

 advantage both hounds and horses must have by 

 coming away at once with a fox from a small piece 

 of gorse, over those which may have been, perhaps, 

 three or four times up and down a large covert, 

 where the hounds have had to contend with strong 

 underwood, and the horses with deep and boggy 

 ridings, to say nothing of the certainty of gentlemen 

 getting well away in the one case, and the chance 

 of not getting away at all in the other. . . . 



These artificial coverts being, of course, properly 

 arranged as to distance from each other, a burst is 

 secured. If the fox live to reach one of them, a 

 check for a minute or two make take place ; but 

 this check may be beneficial to the sport of the day. 

 Hounds and horses get a pufF, tail hounds come up, 

 and those who were not fortunate in getting away 

 with the pack, secure a place. The fox, finding 



