114 ON BLOODING HOUNDS 



but where he plods along unseen, nor followed by- 

 wondering sheep and curious cattle, a good deal of 

 luck must be on the huntsman's side if he is to catch 

 him. 



No one who watches hounds carefully in their work 

 can fail to notice how much that work is affected 

 by a series of disappointments. With a good scent 

 they will, of course, go fast, and drive along well. 

 Really good hounds will always hunt well, and if there 

 be a soft fox in front they will catch him in apparently 

 good style, even if short of blood ; but with a fair 

 holding scent and an old Hector before them, I think 

 most sportsmen who have hunted hounds are agreed 

 that if short of blood they do not seem to press for- 

 ward with such intensity as they do when they are 

 getting a fox nearly every time they go out. Of 

 course, Beckford's story is well known of the pack 

 that did not kill a fox for three weeks, and then, 

 after having had one fox dug out for them, polished 

 off seven brace (I think it was) without a miss. It 

 is not only in hot chase or at the end of the pursuit 

 that most huntsmen declare they note the difference 

 in the work of their hounds when they are getting 

 plenty of blood, but they do their cold-hunting more 

 quickly, and with an appearance of greater deter- 

 mination, which is also visible in drawing thick places, 

 and when packing together on leaving covert. 



To those who are fond of hound-work there is 

 immense pleasure in seeing it done in good style, 

 and the difference between a pack working along on 

 the line of a fox in a perfunctory sort of manner and 

 the same hounds maddening for his blood and driving 



