370 WITH HOUNDS. 



by hunting onlookers, who naturally view with disfavour this 

 form of "showing off." During a run, and when trying to 

 regain our place with the field after having been thrown out, 

 are the only times that jumping is permissible. In order to 

 still further avoid doing wanton injury, we should resist the 

 enticing temptation of having a gallop in a field when going 

 by a bridle path, as for instance, from covert to covert. 



Although the crime of over-riding hounds or otherwise 

 interfering with them may be easily committed by any mis- 

 guided individual when the pack is running slow, the boldest 

 and best mounted thruster will have little chance of being 

 guilty of it in a " big " country, with fast hounds which have 

 been given a good start after a flying fox with a scent. 

 Similarly, the classic advice that during a run, one should 

 ride to one side of the pack, instead of close behind it, which 

 would of course make the hounds think more of their own 

 safety than of the fox, is not of frequent application in 

 the Shires. In those parts, one seldom has the opportunity 

 of steering one's course by the direction of the wind ; for 

 keeping hounds in view will generally be difficult enough, 

 without having to attend to the fact that foxes, other things 

 being equal, prefer going down wind to travelling up wind. I 

 am inclined to think that in Leicestershire, the position of 

 coverts has a far greater influence on their route, than the 

 particular quarter from which the breeze blows. A fox will 

 not run up wind for longer than fifteen minutes at the out- 

 side, and it is then either " Who whoop to ground," or, if the 

 refuge or drain is stopped or inaccessible, he will turn down 

 wind and the pace will usually slacken. Few pursuers seem 

 to think that hounds can become blown as well as horses. A 

 ringing fox consults the ground he is running over, and not 

 the wind, and does not mean to go far in any direction. 



Captain King-King remarks that " the length and duration 

 of a run, the colour and size of a fox when viewed, and the 



