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Let us imagine you have taken a two-day-a-week 

 pack in a provincial country, and you are about to try 

 your hand with foxhounds for the first time. The 

 corn, being cut, you have fixed your meet with the 

 consent of landowners and farmers. Even though 

 you have advertised in local papers, you are careful 

 to let earth-stoppers and keepers know where you 

 mean to begin operations. This covert you chose 

 because you know from reliable authority it harbours 

 a strong litter. On the first morning it is of the 

 utmost importance that young hounds should find at 

 once, and not be sickened by blank draws, or, worse 

 still, be stopped because there is only an old fox. 

 Farmers may want you to draw turnip fields and other 

 unlikely spots for outlying foxes, which, of course, 

 must be done, but as the chances of finding are prob- 

 lematical, never risk it on the morning the young 

 hounds are to be initiated into the mysteries of hunt- 

 ing. Every available hound in the kennel, some 

 twenty-three couple, surround your horse when you 

 arrive at the meet, a cross adjacent to the covert 

 that holds the litter. The advance of dayhght is 

 just filtering through the tree-tops, but the shadows 

 of night still linger beneath. You have laboured 

 assiduously to get your hounds in hard condition, and, 

 whilst awaiting the sun's rising, you feel well satisfied 

 in looking down on the glossy coats that cover the 

 rippling muscles on backs and loins. In spite of the 

 early hour, at least a dozen turn up riding, and there 

 are several enthusiastic hunters afoot. An old gentle- 

 man with grey whiskers on a pony looks the pack 

 over, and, as he notes their fitness, he nods his 

 approval of them to their young huntsman, with the 

 remark, " If their noses are good enough, they ought 



