BREEDING AND HUNTING OF FOXHOUNDS. 85 



liowever unwillingly, disappoint liis field of their 

 gallop, his sole solace being that by their forced 

 disappointment, and his judicious consideration of 

 his hounds, he will be in better trim to kill two 

 foxes if required on the following fixture. 



Frenchmen treat their hounds as if they were 

 wooden images, made to run for their insane 

 owner's amusement, without reference to condition, 

 weariness, or scent; and so slack and cunning 

 have I seen their hounds in the forests of France 

 become from this senseless usage, that the moment 

 their liomids were put into cover and had got a 

 few yards out of sight, keeping to a foot's pace, ~ 

 they burst out in full cry, without a line of scent, 

 and with no animal of chase within a mile of them, 

 and this simply to amuse their masters, and to 

 save them from the trouble of the ^^draw" or the 

 dangers of a wolf or boar. 



It did amuse their masters, precisely as these 

 spoiled and crafty hounds imagined that it would 

 do ; for the moment this false and babbling cry 

 woke up, excited Frenchmen, Avitli ecstatic eyes 

 staring from their sockets, in every quarter of the 

 wood, commenced playing tunes on their enormous 

 horns, each tune chronicling a different animal 



