CUB-HUNTING 279 



the man who uses the cub-hunting field as an exercise 

 ground or as a training ground is taking an unfair 

 advantage of his privileges, and, moreover, he is apt 

 to spoil the sport of his shooting neighbours. When 

 a man is going to enjoy a morning shooting over 

 dogs, he does not care to have his birds flushed by 

 grooms on their way home from cub-hunting. 



In olden days it was the theory, and, I may add, 

 the rule, that the months of September and October 

 should be devoted to shooting, and that hunting 

 commenced on the first Monday in November. Of 

 course, the keenest shooting men allowed that the 

 cubs must be thinned and the young hounds entered 

 to fox ; but these operations were regarded as the 

 duties of the Hunt servants, in which a select few 

 might participate, not as a right, but through the 

 courtesy of the M.F.H. and the covert-owners. The 

 result was that in those days little was heard of 

 the friction between shooting and hunting men, while 

 of late years the columns of the sporting papers 

 have been deluged with accounts of paltry squabbles 

 which should be beneath the dignity of any sports- 

 man. On the one side it is asserted that shooting- 

 tenants insist too rigorously upon their strict rights, 

 and on the other side that hunting men commence 

 the season at least a month before the proper time. 

 It is manifestly impossible to lay down any general 

 principle, for every dispute must be adjudicated upon 

 its own particular merits. Thus the etiquette in a 

 pheasant-preserving country would be far different 



