320 THE CAT FAMILY 



expected to do. Roosevelt more than once refers to 

 the fact that in cat hunting the success of the hunter 

 depends upon his hounds. " As hounds that are not 

 perfectly trained are worse than useless," he says, " this 

 means that success depends absolutely upon the man 

 who trains and hunts the hounds." 



We all know how exasperating it is when bird shoot- 

 ing to have an ill-trained dog — one that races away, for 

 example, after every hare, and, having put an end to 

 the shooting for a long time, at length returns thor- 

 oughly tired out and often with his eyes full of dirt 

 from digging at a burrow. Nothing is more trying 

 than to see such a dog throw himself, panting, on the 

 grass and refuse to get up and continue his work with 

 the birds, from sheer exhaustion. 



A hound not properly trained for one kind of game 

 will follow almost anything. I have seen young dogs 

 leave an antelope to try and catch a jack-rabbit which 

 popped up in front of them when in full chase. The 

 reader will recall the fact that part of the pack left 

 their quarry and went off after a wolf when I was 

 chasing antelopes with Governor Mclntyre, of Colo- 

 rado. When the dogs are after the cougar or the bob- 

 cat they will most likely strike the trail of the deer 

 and wolves, and may jump these animals in the grass. 

 If well trained for cats they do not notice the other 

 animals any more than well-trained setters and point- 

 ers notice the " cotton-tails," which continually run 

 away before their noses. Mr. Golf's hounds which 

 Roosevelt followed were, with the exception of one 

 new dog and a puppy, so well trained that " not 

 one of the pack would look at a deer even when they 



