THE HUNTED FOX AND HIS WILES 155 



No chance for a dry bed for poor Reynard in the 

 big double fence, osier-bed, or little outlying brake 

 this winter ; and many a nice snug drain, with well- 

 sanded floor, which has sufficed for an earth in 

 dry seasons, now carries a foaming torrent. Remains 

 then to the fox the shelter of the gorse, the privet, 

 the pleached laurel covert, the rocky fastnesses of 

 some wild woodland, where also among the roots of 

 some giants of the forest may be discovered the 

 Castle of Malepartus. 



But the plenitude of foxes in the coverts this season 

 has, I think, been the cause of the somewhat unsatis- 

 factory termination of very many good runs that 

 I have seen. Foxes, it appears to me, do not at 

 present trouble themselves to make for some well- 

 known drain, but go straight for a breeding-earth 

 or fox covert, and if the latter be reached a change 

 of foxes almost invariably occurs, much to the dis- 

 tress and misery of many a huntsman. 



" Why is it that fresh foxes invariably spring up, 

 invariably go away, and that hounds invariably 

 change?" some one asked despairingly the other day, 

 when the pursuit had to be stopped owing to the 

 lateness of the hour, as has so often been the case 

 this season in every Irish hunting country. Few 

 persons except those immediately connected with the 

 pack, or the very small minority who are deeply 

 interested in hound-work, ever credit the foxhound 

 with the wonderful sagacity and powers of memory 

 he possesses. Folk see the fox away, or hear that 

 he has gone, and if sufficiently well mounted they 

 see hounds pursuing him ; but few of them guess 



