94 Recollections of the Vine Hunt. 



taking possession of the Craven country, he was warned 

 by an old sportsman in that hunt, that at certain times 

 of the year, when the fields were full of labourers, he 

 would be more troubled with halloos than he had been 

 accustomed to in grass countries. He replied, * They 

 may halloo their hearts out, without doing any harm : 

 my hounds do not know what a halloo means ; they 

 take no notice of any sound except the voice or horn 

 of their huntsman.' This was no exaggeration, but 

 the exact truth ; and both the excellencies and defi- 

 ciencies of the pack were connected with this pecu- 

 liarity. I have heard Mr. Warde laughingly justify 

 his preference for a large heavy hound by saying, 

 *■ Those big heads and throaty necks of theirs are such 

 a weight, that when they have got their noses well 

 down to the ground, it is not very easy for them to lift 

 them up again.' Mr. Warde had a strong opinion, that 

 while hounds continued on the line of their fox, with 

 their noses/?/// of scent, as he termed it, they would 

 hunt through ground on which they would be quite 

 unable to pick up the scent again, if they were lifted ; 

 and he would tell the following instance, which I give 

 on his authority. Once when hunting a fox with a 

 failing scent, they came to a long check in the open. 

 The huntsman made three circular casts, each wider 

 than the preceding one, in vain. The hounds were 

 then brought back to the spot where they had first 

 checked ; where, after a little while, they again took 

 up the scent, and hunted it slowly through every 

 one of the three rings which had been made in the 

 casts. 



But perhaps their most eminent and useful quality 

 was their entire steadiness from riot of every kind, to 



