218 THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 



hounds, never suffer them to go away with an old fox. 

 If you do have a good run, and kill him, it is unfair 

 towards your supporters to anticipate sport which they 

 cannot be expected to share; and, if you have no run, 

 you only make a useless attempt, militating against the 

 purpose of the day, which is devoted to the education 

 and improvement of young hounds. After brushing 

 about in thick covert (one of the chief objects in this 

 woodland work being to teach hounds to face the stuff, 

 and draw for a fox through the thickest underwood), 

 should a young fox break, there can be no objection to 

 a scurry in the open ; it is, indeed, necessary, before 

 regular hunting, to enable you to judge of the pace of 

 young hounds, and how they run together. Some little 

 fun in the open is also as needful as the work in covert, 

 to practise hounds in getting quick away to horn and 

 halloo. It is a magnificent sight to see from thirty to 

 forty couples, all together ; and the turning up of a full 

 grown young fox, after a merry brush across the coun- 

 try, on some fine morning early in October, makes a 

 desirable sensation upon the pack, of which you will 

 find they have retained a lively impression, when next 

 required to "come away, away." Where you have not 

 the advantage of large woodland, cub-hunting is often 

 as completely stopped by drought as the regular hunt- 

 ing is, subsequently, by frost. A good ground-rain in 

 September and October, makes all the difference. It is 



