EAGERNESS PREJUDICIAL TO SPORT 177 



of a furze-brake! If you head back the fox, the 

 hounds, most probably, will kill him in the brake. 

 Such as ride after the hounds, at the same time that 

 they do no good, are least likely to do harm : let 

 such only as understand the business, and mean to be 

 of service to the hounds, ride wide of them. I cannot, 

 however, allow, that the riding close up to hounds 

 is always a sign of a good sportsman ; if it were, a 

 monkey, upon a good horse, would be the best sports- 

 man in the field. Here must I censure (but with 

 respect) that eager spirit which frequently interrupts, 

 and sometimes is fatal to, sport in fox-hunting ; for 

 though I cannot subscribe to the doctrine of my friend 



**, "that a pack of fox-hounds would do better 

 without a huntsman than with one, and that, if left 

 to themselves, they would never lose a fox ; " yet, 

 allowing them their usual attendants, had he objected 

 only to the sportsmen who follow them, I must have 

 joined issue with him. Whoever has followed hounds, 

 must have seen them frequently hurried beyond the 

 scent ; and whoever is conversant in hunting, cannot 

 but know, that the steam of many horses, carried by 

 the wind, and mixed with a cold scent, is prejudicial 

 to it. 1 



It sometimes will happen, that a good horseman 

 is not so well in with hounds as an indifferent one ; 

 because he seldom will condescend to £et off ms horse. 



[' No one should ride directly behind the pack, and at the first sign 

 of a check they should stop at once. It should be remembered that the 

 smell of perspiring horses and human beings is much stronger than the 

 scent from a fox. Overriding hounds is evidently not a sin of recent 

 growth.] 



N 



