FOX-HUNTING ON FOOT 15 



hunted with foxhounds on foot, such a method 

 being rendered necessary to keep down the foxes, 

 owing to the unrideable nature of the country. 

 I have been told that this style of hunting 

 still exists in some parts of the North Country, 

 though I have never been present at any of these 

 gatherings. From what I have been informed 

 respecting them, it would appear that it often 

 takes the best part of a day to kill a fox by such 

 means, and the destruction of the animal must be 

 effected rather by wearing it down than by pace, 

 for which purpose, in order to admit of the field 

 keeping up with them, the hounds used must 

 necessarily be slow. 



Although I have hunted with more than one 

 pack over the Border, I have never had the good 

 fortune to see a specimen of the Scotch grey- 

 hound foxes. I have been informed that they 

 are immense, long-legged animals, possessed of 

 great speed and strength. 



A great number of our foxes at the present 

 time are not the pure English breed. Where the 

 supply has been short, foreign foxes have now 

 and again been imported and turned down, and 

 such an admixture of blood has not been an 

 acquisition, the result being the production of 

 an animal very inferior in pluck and constitution 

 to our own indigenous breed. Continental foxes, 

 like Continental horses, are what is termed 'soft,' 

 and inferior in the stamina and activity which 

 is so characteristic of those bred in these islands. 



