PREFERRED TO ALL OTHER SPORTS 173 



is full of enthusiasm ! Fishing is, in my opinion, a 

 dull diversion ; shooting, though it admit of a com- 

 panion, will not allow of many : both, therefore, may 

 be considered as selfish and solitary amusements, com- 

 pared with hunting ; to which as many as please are 

 welcome: the one might teach patience to a philo- 

 sopher; and the other, though it occasion great fatigue 

 to the body, seldom affords much occupation to the 

 mind ; whereas fox-hunting is a kind of warfare ; its 

 uncertainties, its fatigues, its difficulties, and its dangers, 

 rendering it interesting above all other diversions. 

 That you may more readily pardon this digression, I 

 return to answer your letter now before me. 



I am glad to hear that your men have good voices ; 

 mine, unluckily, have not. There is a friend of mine 

 who hunts his own hounds : his voice is the strangest, 

 and his halloos the oddest, I ever heard. He has, 

 however, this advantage — no dog can possibly mistake 

 his halloo for another's. Singularity constitutes an 

 essential part of a huntsman's halloo : it is for that 

 reason alone, I prefer the horn, to which, I observe, 

 hounds fly more readily than to the huntsman's 

 voice. Good voices certainly are pleasing ; yet it 

 might be as well, perhaps, if those who have them 

 were less fond of exerting them. When a fox is 

 halloo'd, those who understand this business and get 

 forward may halloo him again ; l yet let them be told, 



1 Should a fox be halloo'd in cover, while the hounds are at fault ; 

 if they be long in coming, by getting forward, you may halloo the fox 

 again ; perhaps, before the hounds are laid on ; by which means you 

 will get nearer to him. In cases like this, a good sportsman may be of 

 great use to hounds. There are days, when hounds will do their business 



