RIOT 47 



and show you better chases ; besides, as they are not likely to break from 

 thence, you can do no hurt to the corn, and may begin before it is cut. 



If your hounds be very riotous, and you are obliged to stop them often 

 from hare, it will be advisable to try on (however late it may be) till you 

 find a fox ; as the giving them encouragement should, at such a time, prevail 

 over every other consideration. 



Though all young hounds are given to riot, yet the better they are 

 bred, the less trouble will they be likely to give. Pointers, well bred, stand 

 naturally ; and high-bred fox-hounds love their own game best. Such, 

 however, as are very riotous, should have little rest : you should hunt 

 them one day in large covers where foxes are in plenty ; the next day they 

 should be walked out amongst hares and deer, and stopped from riot ; 

 the day following be hunted again, as before. Old hounds, which I have 

 had from other packs (particularly such as have been entered at hare), 

 I have sometimes found incorrigible ; but I never yet knew a young hound 

 so riotous, but, by this management, he soon became steady. 



When hounds are rated and do not answer the rate, they should be 

 coupled up immediately, and be made to know the whipper-in : in all 

 probability this method will save any further trouble. These fellows 

 sometimes flog hounds unmercifully, and some of them seem to take plea- 

 sure in their cruelty : I am sure, however, I need not desire you to prevent 

 any excess in correction. 



I have heard, that no fox-hounds will break off to deer, after once a, 

 fox is found. I cannot say that the experience I have had of this diversion 

 will in anywise justify the remark : let me advise you, therefore, to seek 

 a surer dependence. Before you hunt your young hounds where hares 

 are in plenty, let them be awed and stopped from hare : before you hunt 

 amongst deer, let them not only see deer, but let them draw covers where 

 deer are ; for you must not be surprised, if, after they are so far steady 

 as not to run them in view, they should challenge on the scent of them. 

 Unless you take this method with your young hounds before you put them 

 into the pack, you will run a risk of corrupting the old ones, and may suffer 

 continual vexation, by hunting with unsteady hounds. I have already 

 told you, that, after my young hounds are taken into the pack, I still take 

 out but very few at a time when I hunt among deer : I also change them 

 when I take out others ; for the steadiness they may have acquired could 

 be but little depended on, were they to meet with any encouragement to 

 be riotous. 



I confess, that I think first impressions of more consequence than they 

 are in general thought to be : I not only enter my young hounds to vermin 

 on that account, but I even use them, as early as I can, to the strongest 

 covers and thickest brakes ; and I seldom find that they are shy of them 

 afterwards. A friend of mine has assured me, that he once entered a 



