i 9 8 WOLF-HUNTING. 



The quiet way in which hounds are thrown into cover in 

 Lower Brittany, at the onset, contrasts remarkably with the up- 

 roar of tongue and horn that instantly follows the rousing of the 

 game and many subsequent features of the chase. Scarcely now 

 did a single cheer escape St. Prix's lips, as Harmonic and Veteran, 

 released from their couples, swung over the tainted line, and with 

 lashing sterns and doubled tongue, at once disappeared into the 

 depths of the cover; nor, for a few minutes, was there a word 

 spoken by that large and wild-looking group of chasseurs that 

 stood in listening attitude, noting every variation in the hounds' 

 tongues, and ready to slip any number of couples at the first signal 

 given by St. Prix's horn. The example of the Louvetier was pro- 

 bably the cause of this steadiness on the part of the peasants ; 

 and, indeed, so long as they were under his eye, the control he 

 exercised over his rude followers appeared to be absolute ; but 

 the first blast of that horn, announcing the game a-foot, acted like 

 a galvanic battery on their nerves, and seemed to kindle their 

 savage hunting nature at once into a wild flame. 



In the mountains of Wales, not many years ago, the fashion 

 in fox-hunting, so far as noise, outcry, and hubbub were deemed 

 necessary to cheer the hounds and scare the prey, was very 

 similar to that followed in Brittany at the present day. His 

 Breton brother, however, at the commencement of the chase, is 

 far quieter and less riotous than the old Cambrian hunter, whose 

 halloos and cheers to individual favourite hounds never cease 

 from the moment they are thrown into cover, hit upon a drag, or 

 maintain the chase, till they kill their fox, or, failing that, till the 

 stars appear in the sky. 



The practice of hallooing hounds, now all but discarded in 

 the modern chase of the fox, is made the subject of more than 

 one of Beckford's admirable letters. He tells us that " such 

 halloos as serve to keep the hounds together, and to get on the 

 tail-hounds, are always of use j it is the halloos of encouragement 



