246 RECORDS OF THE CHASE 



sport which is the means of affording opportunities of 

 accomplishing the object of their ambition. 



In the fashionable and populous countries, where two 

 hundred or more assemble at the place of meeting, 

 with the utmost caution such numbers cannot fail in 

 some cases to impede the operation of hounds and 

 huntsmen. Where the coverts are extensive, persons 

 riding about in all directions occasion much mischief; 

 when gorse coverts are being drawn the field is usually 

 collected to one point ; but then when the fox breaks 

 away what a rush for a start ! This is a critical 

 moment; before the hounds have settled to the scent 

 they are invariably pressed upon, which, added to 

 their natural excitement, will render the steadiest 

 pack hasty. Hundreds of foxes are lost by this in- 

 cautious proceeding. But let us take another case ; 

 when the fox is found in a large woodland, he attempts 

 to break covert and is headed back ; if, however, he 

 does go away and hounds are doing their work to per- 

 fection, ambitious horsemen press cruelly upon them ; 

 and when the fox makes the least deviation from the 

 line, the hounds are driven off the scent. So few men 

 observe, as they ought to do, the difference between 

 hounds running with and without a scent ; in other 

 words, how far they bring it. 



I remember a circumstance with the Atherstone 

 hounds some years since, which impressed me very 

 strongly with the difficulties a huntsman has to con- 

 tend against where there is a very large attendance of 

 sportsmen. They drew the gorse at Combe, which was 

 so thick in the bottom that although there was a fox 

 in it they could not induce him to break covert, and 

 the hounds were taken away to find another, when the 

 fox left his quarters and was viewed away. The 

 hoimds were hallooed back, and being laid on the 

 scent ran him towards the railway, where, the em- 

 bankment being high the horsemen made for the arches 

 and, as it happened, there were two at a distance less 

 than a mile apart. This caused many to speculate ; 



