HUNTING LORE. 267 



manly pastime, but the one serious business 

 of their lives. 



The entries in the diaries are short, and are 

 couched in the homely vigorous English, so 

 familiar to the readers of Washington's journals 

 and private letters. Sometimes they are brief 

 jottings in reference to shooting trips ; such 

 as : " Rid out with my gun " ; " went pheasant 

 hunting " ; " went ducking," and " went a 

 gunning up the Creek." But far more often 

 they are : " Rid out with my hounds," " went 

 a fox hunting," or "went a hunting." In 

 their perfect simplicity and good faith they 

 are strongly characteristic of the man. He 

 enters his blank days and failures as con- 

 scientiously as his red-letter days of success ; 

 recording with equal care on one day, " Fox 

 hunting with Captain Posey catch a Fox," 

 and another, " Went a hunting with Lord 

 Fairfax . . . catched nothing." 



Occasionally he began as early as August 

 and continued until April ; and while he 

 sometimes made but eight or ten hunts in a 

 season, at others he made as many in a month. 

 Often he hunted from Mt. Vernon, going out 

 once or twice a week, either alone or with 

 a party of his friends and neighbors ; and 

 again he would meet with these same neigh- 

 bors at one of their houses, and devote several 

 days solely to the chase. The country was 

 still very wild, and now and then game was 

 encountered with which the fox-hounds proved 

 unable to cope ; as witness entries like : 

 " found both a Bear and a Fox, but got 



