368 The Wilderness Hunter. 



This coursing on the prairie, especially after big game, 

 is an exceedingly manly and attractive sport ; the furious 

 galloping, often over rough ground with an occasional 

 deep washout or gully, the sight of the gallant hounds 

 running and tackling, and the exhilaration of the pure air 

 and wild surroundings, all combine to give it a peculiar 

 zest. But there is really less need of bold and skilful 

 horsemanship than in the otherwise less attractive and 

 more artificial sport of fox-hunting, or riding to hounds, 

 in a closed and long-settled country. 



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 Northern 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-hunting in this valley, the farmers having good 

 horses and being fond of sport ; but it was conducted in 

 a very irregular, primitive manner, 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 hunting by picking up some of the various 



