46 THOUGHTS ON HUNTING 



I object to them on many accounts : but of bag-foxes I shall have occasion 

 to speak hereafter. 



The day after your hounds have had blood, is also a proper time to 

 send them where there is riot, and to chastise them, if they deserve it : it 

 is always best to correct them when they cannot help knowing what they 

 are corrected for. When you send out your hounds for this purpose, the 

 later they go out the better ; as the worse the scent is, the less inclinable 

 will they be to run it, and, of course, will give less trouble in stopping them. 

 It is a common practice with huntsmen, to flog their hounds most unmerci- 

 fully in the kennel. I have already mentioned my disapprobation of it ; 

 but, if many of your hounds be obstinately riotous, 1 you may with less 

 impropriety put a live hare into the kennel to them, flogging them as often 

 as they approach her : they will then have some notion, at least, for what 

 they are beaten ; but let me entreat you, before this charivari 2 begins, 

 to draft off your steady hounds : an animal to whom we owe so much 

 good diversion, should not be ill-used unnecessarily. When a hare is 

 put into the kennel, the huntsman and both the whippers-in should be 

 present ; and the whippers-in should flog every hound, calling him by his 

 name, and rating him as often as he is near the hare ; and upon this occa- 

 sion they cannot cut them too hard, or rate them too much. When they 

 think they have chastised them enough, the hare should then be taken 

 away, the huntsman should halloo off his hounds, and the whippers-in 

 should rate them to him. If any one love hare more than'j/he rest, you 

 may tie a dead one round his neck, flogging him and rating him at the 

 same time. This possibly may make him ashamed of it. I never bought 

 a lot of hounds, some of which were not obliged to undergo this discipline. 

 Either hares are less plentiful in other countries, or other sportsmen are 

 less nice in making their hounds steady from them. 



I would advise you to hunt your large covers with your young hounds : 

 it will tire them out ; 3 a necessary step towards making them steady : 

 will open the cover against the time you begin in earnest ; and, by disturb- 

 ing the large covers early in the year, foxes will be shy of them in the season, 



1 This passage has also been thought deserving of censure, though its motive is humane. 

 By these means the disobedient are taught obedience, and a more general punishment pre- 

 vented, which the effect of bad example might otherwise make necessary. 



2 A confusion arising from a variety of noises. It is a custom in France and in Switzer-. 

 land, if a woman marry sooner than is usual after the death of her husband, or a woman get 

 the better of her husband when attempting to chastise her, and return the beating with 

 interest, the neighbours give them a charivari ; a kind of concert, composed of tongs, fire- 

 shovels, kettles, brass pans, etc., etc. 



3 Provided that you have old hounds enough out to carry on the scent : if you have not 

 a body of old hounds to keep up a cry on the right scent, the young ones, as soon as the ground 

 becomes foiled, will be scattered about the cover, hunting old scents and will not get on fast 

 enough to tire themselves. Young hounds should never be taken into large covers where 

 there is much riot, unless whippers-in can easily get at them. 



