HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 159 



Those of us who are in part of southern 

 blood have a hereditary right to be fond of 

 cross-country riding; for our forefathers in 

 Virginia, Georgia, or the Carolinas, have for 

 six generations followed the fox with horse, 

 horn, and hound. In the long-settled North- 

 ern States the sport has been less popular, 

 though much more so now than formerly ; yet 

 it has always existed, here and there, and in 

 certain places has been followed quite 

 steadily. 



In no place in the Northeast is hunting the 

 wild red fox put on a more genuine and healthy 

 basis than in the Genesee Valley, in central 

 New York. There has always been fox-hunt- 

 ing in this valley, the farmers having good 

 horses and being fond of sport ; but it was 

 conducted in a very irregular, primitive man- 

 ner, until some twenty years ago Mr. Austin 

 Wadsworth turned his attention to it. He has 

 been master of fox- hounds ever since, and no 

 pack in the country has yielded better sport 

 than his, or has brought out harder riders 

 among the men and stronger jumpers among 

 the horses. Mr. Wadsworth began his hunt- 

 ing by picking up some of the various trencher- 

 fed hounds of the neighborhood, the hunting of 

 that period being managed on the principle of 

 each farmer bringing to the meet the hound 

 or hounds he happened to possess, and ap- 

 pearing on foot or horseback as his fancy dic- 

 tated. Having gotten together some of these 

 native hounds and started fox-hunting in local- 

 ities where the ground was so open as to 



