200 VARIETY IN HUNTING COUNTRIES 



presented during the pursuit, by the nature of the 

 country, the stain of cattle or sheep, the heading of 

 the fox by the plough-team or labourer, or the running 

 of a road by the beaten quarry, and his twisting course, 

 that betokens the end is near. 



To some, perhaps, the most wholly delightful moment 

 in a fox-hunt is when a hit is made by some favourite 

 hound, or a happy cast by the huntsman when 

 " we're all in a muddle, beat, baffled, and blown," 

 and the pack, swarming together like bees, drive 

 forward with such rapturous cry that the man must 

 be made of strange material who does not catch the 

 contagion and feel an electric thrill shooting through 

 the very cockles of his heart. 



The requisites laid down by a great sporting 

 authority as being "essential to a real good fox- 

 chase " were " hunting sometimes, running some- 

 times, and racing into the fox at last," and when 

 these essentials are obtained we all go home happy ; 

 and it would be a very long time before a repetition 

 of such pleasure became monotonous ; it certainly 

 has never been my lot to have too much of it — but 

 one never can tell ! " Of sitting, as of all other 

 carnal pleasures," said the escaped Puritan galley- 

 slave, " satiety cometh at the latest." 



Of great grass countries and great crowds, I believe 

 satiety cometh to most after middle-age, though there 

 be many who battle on to the end ; and a great sports- 

 man has been heard to declare that if all Meath were 

 like the famous Dublin country he would not hunt 

 in it. It is that great variety which is common to 

 almost all Irish countries that makes hunting in the 



