Introduction 



HUNTING in America, to-day, is far more popular than many 

 people imagine, and that it is becoming more so is clearly 

 evinced by the great number of Hunts which are organized 

 each year. Throughout Virginia and Pennsylvania, hunting has always 

 been a favorite sport, and packs of hounds, usually of the " trencher-fed " 

 variety, have been maintained since early in the eighteenth century; but the 

 formation of regular organizations for the purpose of hunting is, for the most 

 part, a thing of the last thirty years. True it is, that the Brooklyn Hunt 

 Club seems to have existed in 1 781 ; and that the Gloucester Fox Hunting 

 Club dates from I 766 ; but except for these two, and the Montreal Hunt 

 of Canada, which was founded in 1 826, we find no regular packs kept up 

 till the early seventies. To-day there are fifty-six packs of hounds regularly 

 maintained for the purpose of fox- or drag-hunting, either by hunt clubs or 

 private individuals. When we say there are fifty-six, we do not mean to 

 infer, for an instant, that this includes all the private or even subscription packs. 

 On the contrary, there are doubtless many small packs in Virginia and else- 

 where that have either sprung up recently, or have been rejuvenated, of 

 which we have no knowledge ; but these packs are so constantly changing 

 ownership and so little record has been kept of their history that it has been 

 impossible to include them in this volume. In parts of Virginia and Penn- 

 sylvania, almost every family " keeps hounds," and these join with one another 

 in showing the best of sport in many instances. 



Fox-hunting in America is almost contemporary vsHith fox-hunting in Eng- 

 land, but the development in England has been much more rapid, and the 

 whole game has been carried out on a much more scientific basis than in the 

 United States and Canada. This hardly seems the place to go into the 

 question in detail of the respective merits of the foxhound as he is produced 

 in England and in America to-day. The question is one on which various 

 writers differ widely ; but at the same time it is a question of so much in- 



