MR. HITCHCOCK'S 



the ground are so much more conducive to good scent than with us, that 

 English hounds, being used to it, cannot go on unless they can get it — at 

 least not fast enough to keep on terms with their fox. They lose too much 

 time, and hounds in America have got to keep near a fox in order to kill 

 him. I'd like you to see my hounds work and you'd see the difference in 

 a minute. We go out with perhaps twenty couples, and they are cast off 

 and immediately spread themselves out very wide. They are unruly, I'll 

 admit, but they don't babble. Presently a hound, perhaps a quarter of a 

 mile away, will speak, then another perhaps backing him up, perhaps far- 

 ther away, then another and another until finally they will pack in to the 

 foremost and all go on together. Their instinct seems to be to ' get forward* 

 all the time. If they lose the line during a run, they are not cast, nor 

 do they cast themselves in a body ; they all instantly scatter and again one 

 hound is pretty sure to strike the line, and there is no time wasted when he 

 does. To put it in a nutshell, the hounds, not the huntsman, hunt the fox." 



The Master of the Middlesex had to admit that if all American packs 

 had advanced to this state of efficiency there was very little room for criticism 

 from anyone. On the other hand, he told Mr. Hitchcock that, in his opin- 

 ion, hounds bred in this country from the best of English blood would, 

 within a reasonable time, become adapted to the conditions of atmosphere 

 and soil and at the same time possess all the good qualities of the best 

 American hounds and, in addition, be more amenable to discipline and 

 breed closer to a type. 



" Well," said Mr. Hitchcock, " I'll admit no one has given it a fair trial 

 yet, although I'm told that Mr. Mather's hounds are very good in their work. 

 I hope you won't be disappointed in the results you obtain, though I fear 

 you will." And on this point, the two disputants will probably always differ. 



Mr. Hitchcock has had good luck in breeding and has produced a pack 

 which today has few equals. At the time of his first hunting the Aiken 

 country there were only gray foxes native to the soil, but he introduced a 

 number of red foxes, which have done very well and are now as numerous 

 as the grays. The runs would be very hard to describe, owing to the pecu- 

 liar conformation of the country, the immense stretches of pine woods 



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