FOX-HUNTING ABROAD 



woods of Ontario, where it is impossible to kill 

 foxes in the ordinary way with a pack, One 

 or two steady hounds with plenty of tongue 

 were employed, the foxes circling round the 

 woods without going very far away. 



A good many foxes are killed in winter by 

 tracking and stalking in the snow. Where the 

 country is rough and there are no hounds, it is 

 quite good fun. You pick up the overnight 

 tracks of a fox, and follow them until you even- 

 tually unkennel your quarry, or " jump" him, 

 to use the American expression. One has to use 

 great care, otherwise the fox takes warning, and 

 slips quietly away without offering a shot. 



When we were living in the Canadian woods, 

 every good fox skin fetched a matter of 1 5.00, 

 about £1, so there was some incentive to combine 

 sport with business in the matter of pelts. We 

 have shot foxes from a canoe when duck hunting 

 in the marshes through which a river ran. The 

 foxes used to prowl round the reed-beds and banks 

 of the stream on the look-out for wounded wild 

 fowl. 



Crossing from the States into Canada, we find 

 four Hunts, i.e., the Montreal, London, Ottawa, 

 and Toronto. The Montreal is the oldest Hunt 

 in North America, having been established in 

 1826. The hounds hunt fox on two days per 

 week from mid-September until stopped by frost. 

 Cub-hunting begins in August. It is a country 

 of small enclosures, fenced with rails and stone 

 walls. There is a good deal of woodland, and 

 some wire in parts. The London Hunt, estab- 

 lished in 1884, at one time hunted fox in Middlesex 

 county, but owing to the spread of wire they now 

 run a drag. The Ottawa, established in 1906, 



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