LETTER XX 



IN my seventeenth Letter, I gave you the opinion of my friend **** 

 ' that a pack of fox-hounds, if left entirely to themselves, would never 

 lose a fox.' I am always sorry when I differ from that gentleman in any- 

 thing ; yet I am so far from thinking they never would lose a fox, that I 

 doubt much if they would ever kill one. There are times when hounds 

 should be helped, and at all times they must be kept forward. Hounds 

 will naturally tie on a cold scent, when stopped by sheep, or other impedi- 

 ments ; and, when they are no longer able to get forward, will oftentimes 

 hunt the old scent back again, if they find that they can hunt no other. 

 It is the judicious encouraging of hounds to hunt, when they cannot run, 

 and the preventing them from losing time by hunting too much when they 

 might run, that distinguishes a good sportsman from a bad one. 1 Hounds 

 that have been well taught, will cast forward to a hedge, of their own 

 accord ; but you may assure yourself that this excellence is never acquired 

 by such as are left entirely to themselves. To suffer a pack of fox-hounds 

 to hunt through a flock of sheep, when it is easy to make a regular cast 

 round them, is, in my judgment, very unnecessary ; it is wilfully losing 

 time to no purpose. I have, indeed, been told, that hounds at no time 

 should be taken off their noses : I shall only say, in answer to this, that a 

 fox-hound who will not bear lifting, is not worth the keeping ; and, I will 

 venture to say, it should be made part of his education. 



Though I like to see fox-hounds cast wide and forward, and dislike 

 to see them pick a cold scent through flocks of sheep to no purpose ; yet 

 I must beg leave to observe, that I dislike still more to see that unaccount- 

 able hurry, which huntsmen will sometimes put themselves into the moment 

 their hounds are at fault. Time ought always to be allowed them to make 

 their own cast ; and, if a huntsman be judicious, he will take that oppor- 

 tunity to consider what part he himself has next to act : but, instead of 

 this, I have seen hounds hurried away the very instant they came to a 

 fault ; a wide cast made ; and the hounds at last brought back again to 

 the very place from whence they were so abruptly taken ; and where, if 

 the huntsman could have had a minute's patience, they would have hit 

 off the scent themselves. It is always great impertinence in a huntsman, 



1 In hunting a pack of hounds, a proper medium should be observed ; for though too 

 much help will make them slack, too little will make them tie on the scent, and hunt back the 



heel. 



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