MANAGEMENT OF THE PACK 83 



necessary step towards making them steady ; — will 

 open the cover against the time you begin in earnest ; 

 and, by disturbing the large covers early in the year, 

 foxes will be shy of them in the season, and show 

 you better chases ; besides, as they are not likely to 

 break from thence, you can do no hurt to the corn, 

 and may begin before it is cut. 



If your hounds be very riotous, and you are 

 obliged to stop them often from hare, it will be 

 advisable to try on (however late it may be) till you 

 find a fox ; as the giving them encouragement should, 

 at such a time, prevail over every other consideration. 



Though all young hounds are given to riot, yet the 

 better they are bred, the less trouble will they be 

 likely to give. Pointers, well bred, stand naturally ; 

 and hi^h-bred fox-hounds love their own game best. 

 Such, however, as are very riotous, should have little 

 rest : you should hunt them one day in large covers 

 where foxes are in plenty ; the next day they should 

 be walked out amongst hares and deer, and stopped 

 from riot ; the day following be hunted again, as 

 before. Old hounds, which I have had from other 

 packs (particularly such as have been entered at 

 hare), I have sometimes found incorrigible ; but I 

 never yet knew a young hound so riotous, but, by 

 this management, he soon became steady. 



When hounds are rated and do not answer the 

 rate, they should be coupled up immediately, and be 



be scattered about the cover, hunting old scents, and will not get on fast 

 enough to tire themselves. Young hounds should never be taken into 

 large covers where there is much riot, unless whippers-in can easily get 

 at them. 



