FOXES FOXHOUNDS & FOX-HUNTING 



the hunting season, they are sent out to their 

 various walks in summer. Where packs are 

 kennelled all the year round, unentered puppies 

 only go out to walk. In this case the puppy 

 walker may win a prize at the puppy show, but if 

 he himself does not ride to hounds, he cannot 

 take the same interest in his charge as he would 

 if the hound was returned to him summer after 

 summer. 



In the old days after a kill with a trencher-fed 

 pack a bit of fox skin was tied round the neck of 

 any hound which was walked by a family not 

 represented in the field. Sometimes a note was 

 added giving brief particulars of the run. To-day 

 if a fell hound gets away and kills a fox on his 

 own, someone usually sends a wire to the kennels. 

 On the return from hunting trencher-fed hounds 

 dropped out one by one as each passed the point 

 nearest to its home. The fell hounds, after a 

 long run, occasionally return to their summer 

 walks if the latter are nearer than the kennels. 



In an ordinary enclosed country the earths 

 are stopped — or at any rate are supposed to be 

 stopped — within the area of the day's draw. 

 In the f el s it is impossible to do this owing to the 

 nature of the ground, for a hunted fox can get in 

 almost anywhere. There are many well-known 

 borrans from which a fox can hardly ever be 

 persuaded to bolt, and others in which it is unsafe 

 for terriers to go. Although the earths are any- 

 thing but few and far between on the fells, the 

 Master of a Welsh hill pack whose country in- 

 cludes Snowdon, informed us, while having a 

 few days with the fell hounds, that in his district 

 the borrans were quite as big and that they lay 

 much closer together. Certainly parts of Wales 

 are tremendously rough, and although we have 

 never hunted there we can quite imagine the 



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