KNOWLEDGE OF THE COUNTRY 217 



and when there is not a probability of killing- a fox. 1 

 Some there are, who, after they have lost one fox, for 

 want of scent to hunt him by, will find another : this 

 makes their hounds slack, and sometimes vicious : it 

 also disturbs the covers to no purpose. Some sports- 

 men are more lucky in their days than others. If you 

 hunt every other day, it is possible they may be all 

 bad, and the intermediate days all good: an indifferent 

 pack, therefore, by hunting on good days, may kill 

 foxes, without any merit : and a good pack, notwith- 

 standing all their exertion, may lose foxes which they 

 deserved to kill. Had I a sufficiency of hounds, I 

 would hunt on every good day, and never on a 

 bad one. 2 



A perfect knowledge of his country, certainly, is a 

 great help to a huntsman : if yours, as yet, should have 

 it not, great allowance ought to be made, The trotting 

 away with hounds, to make a long and knowing cast, 

 is a privilege which a new huntsman cannot pretend 

 to : an experienced one may safely say, A fox has 

 made for such a cover — when he has known, perhaps, 

 that nine out of ten, with the wind in the same quarter, 

 have constantly gone thither. 



In a country where there are large earths, a fox 

 that knows the country, and tries any of them, seldom 



1 Though I would not go out on a very windy day, yet a bad-scenting 

 day is sometimes of service to a pack of fox-hounds : they acquire 

 patience from it, and method of hunting. 



2 On windy days, or such as are not likely to afford any scent for 

 hounds, it is better, I think, to send them to be exercised on the turnpike- 

 road ; it will do them less harm than hunting with them might do ; and 

 more good than if they were to remain confined in their kennel ; for 

 though nothing makes hounds so handy as taking them out often, nothing 



