76 UNASKED ADVICE. 



had a fast gallop. The difficulty would be to find the 

 accommodating master of "jelly dogs/' whose pets would 

 not be worth much for some time after such a perform- 

 ance the timid hare would have the best of them for 

 some little time. Of course, I do not mean by this that 

 harriers could kill a fox (though such a thing as that has 

 happened) ; but that, if harriers running a drag can go 

 fast enough for any horse in reason, slow foxhounds, with 

 a scent that enables them to keep going, can do the 

 same. And, indeed, there cannot be very much difference 

 in the individual speed of foxhounds. Of course, in a 

 woodland country a hound who is slow from age can go 

 on hunting longer than he could in the Shires ; but that 

 does not prove that the young hounds of the provincial 

 pack could not go across grass with a good scent as fast 

 as a corresponding number taken from the Quorn or 

 Pytchley kennels. The slowest hound in view is often 

 the fastest on a scent ; wherefore, what I am endeavour- 

 ing to show is, that it is the steady line hunters, who 

 keep pegging away and never leaving it, that kill the 

 fox, and make the customers look anxiously for their 

 second horses not the flyers who go like a flash of 

 lightning for a mile, then put up their heads and are 

 lifted for a mile, and then give up their fox and try for 

 another ! 



So much for the hounds themselves. Now a word 

 about the men. The passion for being quick is the 

 prevailing fault of most servants at the present time. 

 The huntsman not only makes his cast too soon, but 

 frequently does not give time to the pack to try while 

 he is casting them. Who has not seen a swell hunts- 

 man casting at the rate of ten miles an hour round a 

 field, with an equally swell whip rating and flogging 



