THE SEASON OF THE YEAR. 73 



But, after all, the number of people who get up early 

 for cubbing is but small, and all the better for the hunts- 

 man that it should be so ; the whole performance is 

 naturally a very slow one to anyone who is not immedi- 

 ately concerned in it. The owner of the coverts is 

 delighted to see a good show of cubs, and the master and 

 huntsman to observe the debut of their young entry, but 

 there is little to reward anyone else for the exertion of an 

 unusually early turn-out. Our imaginary sportsman, 

 indeed, is still shooting, and will hardly think of hunt- 

 ing, before the end of November. But because cub- 

 hunting is a duty, as far as the officials are concerned, it 

 does not follow that it is properly performed, any more 

 than any other duty. There was an amount of truth that 

 is rather melancholy in the remarks of a correspondent 

 of the Field some time ago.* That time and money should 

 be spent in an endeavour to show bad sport sounds 

 hardly credible ; but really it is often the case that this 

 happens, though not intentionally. It happens simply 

 wherever there is a huntsman who is deficient in sense ; 

 and that every huntsman is not a Solomon is a fact 

 needing no demonstration. Whether hounds are to hunt 

 a fox steadily through all opposing difficulties, and 

 account for him at last, or to lose him in fifteen minutes, 

 is, bar accidents, an affair of treatment and training. 

 Many men seem to consider that a pack of hounds is a 

 machine that will hunt the line of the fox as an engine 

 will progress along a line of rails whence once started 

 that they may be shunted, so to speak, by being lifted 

 and started on the line again, ready to go along it as 

 smoothly as ever. They forget that hounds are dogs 

 that, mutatis mutandis, the same rules apply to 



* " Eadical." 



