OF CASTING 123 



When hounds are making a regular cast, trying for the scent as they 

 go, suffer not your huntsman to say a word to them : it cannot do any 

 good, and probably may make them go over the scent : nor should you 

 suffer either the whip or the voice of your whipper-in to be now heard ; 

 his usual roughness and severity would ill suit the stillness and gentleness 

 which are required at a time like this. 



When hounds come to a check, a huntsman should observe the tail 

 hounds : they are least likely to overrun the scent ; and he may see by 

 them how far they brought it : in most packs there are some hounds that 

 will show the point of the fox, and, if attended to, will direct his cast. 

 When such hounds follow slowly and unwillingly, he may be certain that 

 the rest of the pack are running without a scent. 



When he casts his hounds, let him not cast wide, without reason ; 

 for, of course, it will take more time. Huntsmen, in general, keep too 

 forward in their casts ; or, as a sailor would say, keep too long on one tack : 

 they should endeavour to hit off the scent, by crossing the line of it : 

 two parallel lines, you know, can never meet. 1 



When he goes to a halloo, let him be careful, lest his hounds run the 

 heel, as much time is lost by it. I once saw this mistake made by a famous 

 huntsman : after we had left a cover which we had been drawing, a dis- 

 turbed fox was seen to go into it : he was halloo'd, and we returned. The 

 huntsman, who never inquired where the fox was seen, or on which side of 

 the cover he entered, threw his hounds in at random, and, as it happened, 

 on the opposite side : they immediately took the heel of him, broke cover, 

 and hunted the scent back to his very kennel. 



Different countries require different casts. Such huntsmen as have 

 been used to a woodland and inclosed country, I have seen lose time in an 

 open country, where wide casts are always necessary. 



When you want to cast round a flock of sheep, the whipper-in ought 

 to drive them the other way, lest they should keep running on before you. 



A fox seldom goes over or under a gate, when he can avoid it. 



Huntsmen are frequently very conceited, and very obstinate. Often- 

 times have I seen them, when their hounds came to a check, turn directly 

 back, on seeing hounds at head which they had no opinion of. They 

 supposed the fox was gone another way ; in which case, Mr. Bayes's remark 

 in the Rehearsal z always occurs to me, ' that, if he should not, what then 

 becomes of their suppose.'' Better, surely, would it be, to make a short 

 cast forward first ; they then might be certain the hounds were wrong, 

 and, of course, could make their own cast with greater confidence the 



1 By attending to this, a huntsman cannot fail to make a good cast ; for, if he observe 

 the point of the fox, he may always cross upon the scent of him. 



:2 A once notorious play attributed to the Duke of Buckingham and collaborators 

 (1671). It ridiculed the heroic tragedy of the time of which Dryden was the leading writer. 



