46 HUNTING 



Some huntsmen seem to have a natural instinct for 

 hunting a fox, and rarely make a mistake in their " cast/' 

 i.e. in taking hounds to a point where they think they 

 can pick up the scent; others have the unfortunate 

 knack of always making the wrong " cast " first. The 

 pity is that the former are unable to tell us on what 

 principles they act : indeed they act on different prin- 

 ciples in similar cases. To quote the words of the 

 Duke of Beaufort: "As to telling a man what he 

 should do when hounds come to a check after running 

 hard — say twenty minutes — it is impossible ; but the 

 first thing to do, if, happily, no horseman were near 

 them when they checked, is to leave them alone and 

 let the hounds swing and cast forward, back and round ; 

 then the huntsman must exercise his keenest sense of 

 observation and his natural intelligence." Uxperientia 

 clocet. We have often heard a huntsman say : " It's the 

 same fox, I'll stake my life, that escaped us the other 

 day," and we believe that that huntsman was generally 

 speaking the truth, though there may have been a 

 dozen earths in or near the covert where the hunted 

 fox was found. But such men are as rare as they are 

 reliable, and, we may add, invaluable. Should the 

 novice be fortunate enough to hunt with one of these, 

 and be close to the hounds when they check, we advise 

 him to observe every movement of the huntsman, while 

 keeping a good distance from hounds so as not to 

 disturb them in their work. When he sees a hound 

 begin to " feather," i.e. when his " stern," or tail, becomes 

 violently agitated, it means that that hound has got an 

 inkling of the scent, but is not sufficiently certain to 

 " speak to it.'' Directly he does speak to it the other 

 hounds will join him like a flash of lightning. 



There may be several checks in a run, so as to 



