202 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



of foxes' scalps will be very few. To prove how little 

 iiicl<Tment in a hunting-field sometimes sits in a man's 

 liead, often have I heard hounds running to me as I 

 sat at the end of a cover, and because a hare has 

 bolted out of the muse in the cover-hedge first, 

 when the leading hound came crashing through im- 

 mediately after the hare, fools have cracked their 

 whips in the face of the pack, and cried, " 'Ware 

 hare ! " To think that the men who did so had not 

 reason enough to know that it was possible that the 

 fox mio-ht have gone by before they stood there, is 

 enrao'ino-, and that they should not be aware that a 

 hare, being a timid animal, would naturally fly before 

 the noise of the hounds, and most probably avail her- 

 self of the same hole in the hedge that gave egress to 

 the fox, proves an amount of ignorance scarcely to be 

 believed. Again, I have seen men crack their whips 

 and cry, "'Ware heel!" when hounds have run the 

 line of scent up a green lane and back again, the fox 

 having been headed ; in short, there is no conceiv- 

 able error I have not seen men, with whips in their 

 hands and caps and hats on what looked like heads, 

 commit, in my reminiscences of hunting. 



Although 1 difl^ered entirely from Mr. Wyndham's 

 system of hunting, I resolved, so long as I was 

 master of Teffont and the main earths in the stone 

 quarries, he should have no lack of foxes ; and I 

 wished to get up a few rabbits to save the other 

 game. In saying this, I beg the rising generation of 

 sportsmen to remember, that having a large quantity 

 of rabbits on a manor will not save the game nor 

 feed the foxes, unless the rabbits are purposely killed, 

 and left dead about the covers, for the foxes to pick 

 up. If this is done, you may make the old dog and 



