ENTERING THE HOUNDS AT HARE 49 



sary to your diversion. He intends, you say, to enter your young hounds 

 at hare : is it to teach them obedience ? Does he mean to encourage 

 vice in them, for the sake of correcting it afterwards ? I have heard, 

 indeed, that the way to make hounds steady from hare, is to enter them at 

 hare ; 1 that is, to encourage them to hunt her. The belief of so strange a 

 paradox requires more faith than I can pretend to. 



It concerns me to be under the necessity of differing from you in 

 opinion ; but, since it cannot now be helped, we will pursue the subject, 

 and examine it throughout. Permit me then to ask you, what it is that 

 you propose from entering your hounds at hare ? Two advantages, I 

 shall presume, you expect from it : the teaching of your hounds to hunt, 

 and teaching them to be obedient. However necessary you may think 

 these requisites in a hound, I cannot but flatter myself that they are to 

 be acquired by less exceptionable means. The method I have already 

 mentioned to make hounds obedient, as it is practised in my own kennel 

 that of calling them over often in the kennel, to use them to their names, 2 

 and walking them out often among sheep, hares, and deer, from which 

 they are stopped, to use them to a rate, in my opinion, would answer your 

 purpose better. The teaching your hounds to hunt, is by no means so 

 necessary as you seem to imagine : Nature will teach it them ; nor need 

 you give yourself so much concern about it. Art will only be necessary 

 to prevent them from hunting what they ought not to hunt ; and do you 

 think your method a proper one to accomplish it ? 



The first, and most essential, thing towards making hounds obedient, 

 I suppose, is to make them understand you ; nor do I apprehend that 

 you will find any difficulty on their parts, but such as may be occasioned 

 on yours. 3 The language that we use to them to convey our meaning 

 should never vary ; still less should we alter the very meaning of the terms 

 we use. Would it not be absurd to encourage when we mean to rate ? 

 and, if we did, could we expect to be obeyed ? You will not deny this ; 

 and yet you are guilty of no less an inconsistency, when you encourage 

 your hounds to run a scent to-day, which you know, at the same time, 

 you must be obliged to break them from to-morrow. Is it not running 

 counter to justice and to reason ? 



I confess, that there is some use in hunting young hounds where you 

 can easily command them ; but even this you may pay too dearly for. 

 Enter your hounds in small covers, or in such large ones as have ridings 



1 In proper hands, either method may do. The method here proposed seems best suited 

 to fox-hounds in general, as well as to those who have the direction of them. The talents of 

 some men are superior to all rules ; nor is their success any positive proof of the goodness of 

 their method. See pages 39-40. 



2 See note, page 22. 



3 Were huntsmen to scream continually to their hounds, using the same halloo whether 

 they were drawing, casting, or running, the hounds could not understand them, and probably 

 would show on every occasion as little attention to them as they would deserve. 



7 



