50 THOUGHTS ON HUNTING 



cut in them : whippers-in can then get at them ; can always see what 

 they are at ; and I have no doubt that you may have a pack of fox-hounds 

 steady to fox by this means, without adopting so preposterous a method 

 as that of first making hare-hunters of them. You will find that hounds, 

 thus taught what game they are to hunt, and what they are not, will stop 

 at a word ; because they will understand you ; and, after they have been 

 treated in this manner, a smack only of the whip will spare you the inhu- 

 manity of cutting your hounds in pieces (not very justly), for faults which 

 you yourself have encouraged them to commit. 



In your last letter you seem very anxious to get your young hounds 

 well blooded to fox, at the same time that you talk of entering them at 

 hare. How am I to reconcile such contradictions ? If the blood of fox 

 be of so much use, surely you cannot think the blood of hare a matter of 

 indifference, unless you should be of opinion that a fox is better eating. 

 You may think, perhaps, it was not intended they should hunt sheep ; 

 yet we very well know, that when once they have killed sheep, they have 

 no dislike to mutton afterwards. 



You have conceived an idea, perhaps, that a fox-hound is designed 

 by Nature to hunt a fox : yet, surely, if that were your opinion, you would 

 not think of entering him at any other game. I cannot, however, suppose 

 Nature designed the dog which we call a fox-hound to hunt a fox only, 

 since we very well know that he will also hunt other animals. That a 

 well-bred fox-hound may give a preference to vermin, cceteris paribus, I 

 will not dispute : it is very possible he may ; but of this I am certain, 

 that every fox-hound will leave a bad scent of fox for a good one of either 

 hare or deer, unless he has been made steady from them ; and in this I 

 shall not fear to be contradicted. But, as I do not wish to enter into 

 abstruse reasoning with you, or think it in anywise material to our present 

 purpose, whether the dogs we call fox-hounds were originally designed 

 by Nature to hunt fox, or not, we will drop the subject. I must, at the 

 same time, beg leave to observe, that dogs are not the only animals in 

 which an extraordinary diversity of species has happened since the days 

 of Adam. Yet a great naturalist tells us, that man is nearer, by eight 

 degrees, to Adam, than is the dog to the first dog of his race ; since the 

 age of man is fourscore years, and that of a dog but ten. It therefore 

 follows, that if both should equally degenerate, the alteration would be 

 eight times more remarkable in the dog than in man. 



The two most necessary questions which result from the foregoing 

 premises, are, Whether hounds entered at hare are perfectly steady after- 

 wards to fox ? and, Whether steadiness be not attainable by more reason- 

 able terms ? Having never hunted with gentlemen who follow this practice, 

 I must leave the first question for others to determine ; but, having always 

 had my hounds steady, I can myself answer the second. 



