4 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



hounds is now kept at Montreal, that another was kept a 

 few years since by the members of the British legation 

 at Washington, and that a few planters, in two or three 

 Southern States, amuse themselves occasionally and irre- 

 gularly by fox-hunting, do not constitute fox-hunting an 

 American Field Sport ; which it is not ; as is demonstrated 

 by the undeniable fact, that there are not above three 

 States out of thirty, more or less, in which the fox is 

 pursued as anything but vermin. 



There are, moreover, many reasons which render it 

 almost impossible that fox-hunting ever shall become an 

 American Field Sport. In the Northern and Eastern 

 States, where only, as a general rule, the country is suffi- 

 ciently cleared of timber to allow of this pursuit in per- 

 fection, the severity of the winter, and the jealousy of 

 farmers in regard to trespass on their lands, and the 

 breaking of their fences, combine to render it impracti- 

 cable. In the Southern States, the woodland character of 

 the country, and the frequency of swamps, bayous, and 

 similar obstacles, destroy all its peculiar excellences, and 

 detract infinitely from its excitement, and its scientific 

 character. 



Yet once more. Had fox-hunting been, what it is not, 

 an American Field Sport, I should still have dismissed it in 

 a few pages. Because, being a sport thoroughly under- 

 stood, and carried to the utmost perfection in the Old 



