192 THOUGHTS ON HUNTING 



Though I so strongly recommend to you to make 

 your hounds steady, from having seen unsteady packs, 

 yet I must also add that I have frequently seen the 

 men even more unsteady than the hounds. It is 

 shocking to hear hounds halloo'd one minute and rated 

 the next : nothing offends a good sportsman so much, 

 or is in itself so hurtful. I will give you an instance 

 of the danger of it : — My beagles were remarkably 

 steady : they hunted hare in Cranborn Chase, where 

 deer are in great plenty, and would draw for hours, 

 without taking the least notice of them. When tired 

 of hare-hunting, I was inclined to try if I could find 

 any diversion in hunting of fallow deer. I had been 

 told that it would be impossible to do it with those 

 hounds that had been made steady from them ; and, to 

 put it to the trial, I took them into a cover of my own, 

 which has many ridings cut in it, and where are many 

 deer. The first deer that we saw we halloo'd ; and, 

 by great encouragement and constant hallooing, there 

 were but few of these steady hounds but would run 

 the scent. They hunted deer constantly from that 

 day, and never lost one afterwards. Dogs are sensible 

 animals : they soon find out what is required of them, 

 when we do not confuse them by our own heedless- 

 ness : when we encourage them to hunt a scent which 

 they have been rated from, and perhaps severely 

 chastised for hunting, they must needs think us cruel, 

 capricious, and inconsistent. 1 



1 Though all hounds ought to be made obedient, none require it so 

 much as fox-hounds, for, without it, they will be totally uncontrollable ; 

 yet not all the chastisement that cruelty can inflict, will render them 



