180 PEAIRIE AND FOREST. 



conducted sport, but in the latter associated with more 

 labour and hardship. The woods are so immense that it 

 generally results in cover-hunting from start to finish ; 

 consequently slower hounds require to be used, and every 

 advantage of pug taken. At dawn the Field assemble, so 

 as to catch their quarry with a full stomach, and it is no 

 uncommon thing for the sun to have reached the western 

 horizon and the hunters to be thirty miles from home ere 

 the death wo whoop be sounded. 



But to the black fox. I had often longed to capture 

 one of these beauties during my boyish residence on the 

 American continent. The price that the pelt would bring 

 was a supply of pocket-money that I could see no end to ; 

 but once, and only once, during that visit, had I the 

 fortune to almost realise my wish. I had been hunting all 

 day by the margin of a distant lake. Tired and unsuccessful, 

 about the hour of sunset I approached a clearing of a few 

 acres in the forest, where Indian corn had been grown and 

 just gathered into shocks. My companion was a little 

 half-bred terrier, who had endeared himself to me from his 

 sagacity and obedience. As I neared the brush fence 

 which surrounded the opening, with the habitual caution 

 that residents in wild lands learn, I secreted myself behind 

 a stump, and took a careful survey ; for deer are fond of 

 corn, so are bears, as well as all the small varieties of 

 game. I had not remained thus hidden for many minutes 

 when what I had taken for a charred stump suddenly 

 became animated, and remarkable were the movements 

 that heralded this transformation. One more glance told 

 me that it was a fox of the long-coveted species ; but what 



