FOXES FOXHOUNDS & FOX-HUNTING 



catch sight of the fox. The average fox by no 

 means appreciates such attentions, nor is the 

 huntsman too well pleased when his hounds are 

 interfered with. If a man has a sound constitu- 

 tion to begin with, and foUows the fell packs 

 regularly, he is likely to live to a good old age, for 

 fresh mountain air and plenty of exercise are the 

 best antidotes for " evil humours." In that 

 quaint old book " The Master of Game " it says 

 ' ' Yet I will prove to you how hunters live longer 

 than any other men, for as Hippocras the doctor 

 telleth a full repletion of meat slayeth more men 

 than any sword or knife. They eat and drink 

 less than any other men of this world, for in the 

 morning of the assembly they eat a little, and if 

 they eat well at supper they wiU by the morning 

 have corrected their nature for then they have 

 eaten but little, and their nature will not be pre- 

 vented from doing her digestion, whereby no 

 wicked humours or superfluities may be en- 

 gendered. And always when a man is sick, men 

 diet him and give him to drink water made of 

 sugar and tysane and of such things for two or 

 three days to put down evil humours and his 

 superfluities, and also make him void. But 

 for a hunter one need not do so, for he may have 

 no repletion on account of the little meat, and by 

 the travail that he hath. And, supposing that 

 which cannot be, and that he were full of wicked 

 humours, yet men know well that the best way 

 to terminate sickness that can be is to sweat. 

 And when the hunters do their ofQce on horse- 

 back or on foot, they sweat often, then if they 

 have any evil in them it must away in the 

 sweating ; so that he keep from cold after the 

 heat. Therefore it seemeth to me I have proved 

 enough. Leeches ordain for a sick man little 



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