THE GUN, AND HOW TO CHOOSE IT 35 



as the difficulty of the almost unjumpable timber fences, 

 nearly debar the possibility of fox or deer-hunting with 

 complete packs and mounted hunters. Nor, were it other- 

 wise, is it probable that this sport could ever become very 

 general or popular, owing to the dislike of farmers to have 

 their fields crossed, and their fences broken down, by a 

 rout of hard-riding Nimrods. 



Some years since, indeed, two packs of fox-hounds were 

 regularly kept up in full English sporting style, the one 

 at Washington, in the District of Columbia, by the gentle- 

 men of the British legation, while Sir Richard Vaughan 

 was at the head of it, the other at Montreal by the British 

 residents and the officers of the garrison. They languished, 

 however, in an uncongenial clime, and year by year were 

 less and less strenuously supported, until both have, I be- 

 lieve, fallen into total abeyance. 



In the southern States, where the seasons are not so un- 

 propitious to the sport, where the properties are much 

 larger, vested in fewer hands, and owned for the most part 

 by the wealthier classes, who themselves constitute the 

 sporting population, as in Maryland and Virginia, fox- 

 hunting is still carried on, to some extent, by the planters ; 

 though with none of that accuracy of detail and complete- 

 ness of appointment which attach to it, and render it so 

 magnificent, both as a spectacle and a sport, in England ; 

 and, it is believed, with decreasing spirit and smaller favor, 

 even in the imperfect manner which there obtains. 



In the Carolinas, Georgia, and some of the south- 

 western States, deer-hunting on horseback with packs of 

 hounds prevails ; but even there the shot gun is the modus 



