228 THE FOX 



English farmers, and make no small item in the 

 market for forage, seeing that the hunter demands 

 the best of condition in order to follow the fox, and 

 thus requires the highest-priced food for which other- 

 wise racing-stables would be the only customers. 



But to return to the fox before hounds. How 

 long will a fox stand before a pack of hounds on a 

 fair scenting day ? If the hounds are able to keep 

 up a sufficient pressure, and the fox is found to go 

 all the time at full stretch, about twenty minutes is 

 the limit of the staying power of most foxes. If the 

 time be longer the pace must be slower, and there 

 are sure to be some pauses. We talk of forty minutes 

 or even an hour without a check : what we mean is 

 that we have been galloping all the time. But the 

 fox knows, or seems to know, that he must check 

 hounds or die. If a run lasts more than from twenty 

 to thirty minutes, some of the following things must 

 have happened : The first, and by far the most likely, 

 is that there has been a change of foxes. Quite good 

 runs are often made up in this way, especially in 

 grass countries with many small coverts. We start 

 from a small covert and run to another, from which 

 hounds go on with a fresh fox, taking away a third 

 from the next covert, and all without any apparent 

 pause or check. Sometimes hounds pick up a new 



