BREEDING AND HUNTING OF FOXHOUNDS, 93 



whom I had but lately given the late Duke of 

 Manchester eighty guineas, buried the piece of an 

 oaken stump so deeply into the frog of a hinder foot 

 that he never recovered, and never left his stables 

 again, and was obliged to be destroyed. I' believe 

 that when the check in question commenced, the 

 fox, finding himself so closely pressed, had lain 

 down among us. Had I rushed wildly on, in a 

 forward cast, we should never have got on terms 

 with him again. The instant the fox became 

 aware that the hounds were held hacic, he iue7it on ; 

 and from the spot whence he started, and whence I 

 had started too to make the cast, there the hounds on 

 their return hit him, and ran him to a brilliant end. 

 As has been elsewhere remarked, the two animals 

 that never lose their presence of mind, let the sur- 

 rounding danger be ever so imminent, are the fox 

 and the rat. The fox will run if he can, and 

 so will the rat ; but if the former finds he cannot 

 outstrip his pursuers, he will adopt some unex- 

 pected dodge to throw them out, and gain him a 

 better start. I have known a fox in a last extre- 

 mity of danger to leap into an open horse-trougli 

 in the middle of a farmyard, with the sunbeams 

 shining full upon it, and lie in the bottom of it 



