FOXES FOXHOUNDS & FOX-HUNTING 



Considering the large number of earths available 

 to a hunted fox, one might imagine that the 

 majority of runs would be short. Such, how- 

 ever, is not the case, and it is to the credit of the 

 hill foxes that they often provide long runs, and 

 in a good percentage of cases are fairly rolled 

 over in the open. The longest runs are apt to 

 come ofi in January and February, when dog 

 foxes are travelling. Once hounds get on to 

 him, one of these customers will make a bee-line 

 back to his own country, and followers will have 

 to exert themselves to be in at the death. In 

 spring, too, a fox may travel a long way in order 

 to worry lambs, often preferring to commit such 

 depredations out of his own country, with the 

 result that the local foxes get blamed for his 

 misdeeds. 



When talking of fell hunting John Peel's name 

 naturally crops up, although that famous Cum- 

 brian Master and Huntsman did not hunt the 

 fells proper, but the country adjoining, in the 

 territory now covered by the Cumberland hunt. 

 John Peel was a plain Cumberland yeoman, who 

 hunted hounds at his own expense for half a 

 century. Seeing that his income was less than 

 four hundred pounds per annum, his establish- 

 ment must have been managed on a very primitive 

 scale, yet for all that he showed good sport, and 

 his hounds must have been of the right sort in order 

 to kill the stout hill foxes. Although of course 

 famous in his own country Peel was little known 

 beyond it until the song " D' ye ken John Peel," 

 became popular. Peel died in 1854, and the 

 spirited verses had little vogue until after that 

 date. A quarter of a century after John Peel 

 was finally " run to earth " in Caldbeck Church- 

 yard, another famous Cumbrian was beginning 



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