i8 LETTERS TO YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



excitement so that the huntsman will understand exactly. 

 If the fox is lost during a hunt it is dangerous to " holloa " 

 if you see one, because, unless you have considerable know- 

 ledge of the game, it is difficult to recognise the hunted fox, 

 and you may put the pack on a fresh one, which is most 

 annoying when the hunted fox may be threading fences 

 and running short, as foxes do when sinking. Though I 

 counselled you to keep forward in the cavalcade when hounds 

 were drawing, once the fox breaks covert you, being well up 

 to the front, sit still and quiet till hounds have really settled 

 on his line. Another time to stand still is when hounds 

 check or hover when running a fox. 



Now about the three methods of seeing the sport which 

 were mentioned in concluding our last letter. Road riding 

 is inglorious and soon dismissed. I think half a mile behind, 

 or half a hundred, is worth all the road riding there ever was. 

 Still, there are many good sportsmen who command our 

 respect, though possibly not our admiration, who never leave 

 friend Macadam's rather inglorious security. They know 

 all about hunting, the pedigree of the individual hounds, 

 the line of half the foxes in the country. But my letters 

 are to " young sportsmen," and the road is no place for 

 them at any rate for the next forty years. Not that old 

 gentlemen are always found there, by any means. I once 

 saw in Ireland a wiry little man on a young, high-couraged, 

 blood horse, slipping him along with the best. He was close 

 on eighty years of age ! The road is the place for nurses 

 with children in tub-carts, fat people on ponies, and second 

 horsemen which latter should be there a good deal more 

 than they are. Now for the class which follow hounds 

 wherever they go, but some distance behind, and with this 

 class perhaps you will find yourself at first, so get to know 

 them. They are acquainted with the likely run of foxes, 

 the fords in all the streams, the easiest place in half the fences 

 in the country, all the gates and every path for miles. On 

 bad scenting days and with ringing foxes they see all there 

 is to see, and sometimes more than some of the " thrusters." 

 If you want the best description of a hunt they can always 

 give it you. They jump all the places, or most of them, 

 which are jumped by the forward brigade, or rather section, 



