FOX-HUNTING IN NEW ENGLAND 35 



These artifices quite bewilder and baffle the young 

 dog, but only delay the elder who knows of old 

 the tricks of foxes. Nothing can be more admirable 

 than the manner of his working as he comes to the 

 edge of the ploughed field. He wastes no time in 

 useless pottering among the fresh-turned furrows, 

 but with rapid lopes skirts their swarded border, 

 till, at a far corner, his speed slackens as his keen 

 nose catches the scent again in the damp grass; he 

 snuffs at it an instant to assure himself, then 

 sounds a loud, melodious note, and goes on baying 

 at every lope till the road is reached. Along this 

 he zigzags till he finds where the fox has left it. 

 And now comes the puzzling bit of fence. The old 

 dog thinks the fox has gone through it; he goes 

 through it himself, but finds no scent there; puz- 

 zles about rapidly, now trying this side, now that; 

 at last he bethinks himself of the top, to which he 

 clambers and there finds the missing trail. But 

 his big feet cannot tread the "giddy footing" of 

 the rail as could Reynard's dainty pads, so down 

 he goes and tries on either side for the point where 

 the fox left the fence. Ranging up and down, too 

 near it to hit the spot where Reynard struck the 

 ground, he fails to recover the scent, stops — 

 raises his nose and utters a long, mournful howl, 

 half vexation, half despaih Now he climbs to the 

 top rail farther on and snuffs it there. "No taint 

 of a fox's foot is here," so he reasons, "and he must 



