DIFFERENCE OF SCENT IN FOXES. 147 



I have seen hounds, when they could scarce own the 

 line of a heavy vixen, rattle merrily away on the dog 

 fox ; and I have known hen-pheasants sit on their eggs 

 undisturbed, and safely hatch, within a foot of a ride, 

 wherein the cubs were in the habit of playing, and up 

 which the old foxes passed frequently. Of this I am 

 also sure, that scents differ in different foxes, and 

 that a pack may divide, be simultaneously running 

 over similar lands, and the scent with the one and 

 the other be widely different. In illustration of the 

 instances I have seen, I offer a day with my hounds 

 at Haleweston. ]\Iy two men went after the smallest 

 body of hounds, to stop and turn them back to me : 

 each had a fox before them. They could not stop the 

 smaller body, in cover or out of cover, the scent was 

 so brilliant ; but after a beautiful burst, they were 

 stopped, and the fox before them saved, by his having 

 been coursed by a sheep-dog. In the meantime, I had 

 a long, slow run with a multitude of checks, with my 

 brother to assist me, and, at the end of two hours, 

 hunted down and killed the fox. While in the cover, 

 where we found at one and the same moment, this 

 variety of scent existed, and continued when we each 

 went away. My father's huntsman, Tom Oldaker, al- 

 ways said, the most unerring sign he ever knew of there 

 being no scent was when the gossamer- webs, in lines, 

 stretched thickly over the grass. I have seen an excep- 

 tion to that rule ; and indeed there is no sort of weather 

 that I have not known a scent to exist in, or not to exist 

 in. " A southerly wind, and a cloudy sky," may do very 

 well for a song; but I am convinced that there is a 

 greater tendency to scent in a clear, harsh, north and 

 northeast wind. When rain is in the air, to come, but 

 not yet come, that is against a scent; the rain down, even 



L 2 



