Hunting in the last Century. 1 3 



for another. To take hounds home on their blood 

 was a favourite maxim with them ; and therefore they 

 usually left off, not only actually earlier, but earlier 

 compared with their hour of meeting than is now 

 customary. Beckford says that he would never draw 

 for a fresh fox after one o'clock, yet he intimates that 

 he did not meet at so early an hour as some did, nor 

 so early as he himself considered desirable for hounds. 

 Even in my recollection there has been a change in 

 that respect. In my youth, a master of hounds was 

 thought justified in declining to draw again if a fox 

 had been killed after a fair hour's run. I have known 

 both Mr. Chute and Mr. Villebois act on this rule, and 

 leave off between twelve and one o'clock. 



Now compare all this with present usages. Hounds 

 now throw off at eleven o'clock. By that time there 

 can be no drag to assist hounds in finding. The men 

 must trust to the chance, that they and the hounds 

 between them may walk up a fox, and get him upon 

 his legs. They can draw none but the most likely 

 places, and have no clue to guide them to those 

 foxes, — numerous when a country has been much 

 disturbed, and particularly well worth finding, — 

 that lie in strange out-of-the-way places. The hunts- 

 man now knows of the existence of such foxes only 

 by hearing that one has been accidentally moved 

 by greyhounds or shepherds' dogs, or by finding that 

 his hounds have changed, he knows not where, in 

 running across the open. Consequently, whereas nearly 

 every fox within the boundaries of a hunt was for- 

 merly available for sport, in these days a pack must 

 draw well, and have good luck to find half of them. 



But even this difference, great as it is, is trifling 



