FOX HUNTING IN AMERICA. 267 



" My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, 

 So flew'd, so sanded ; and their heads are hung 

 With ears that sweep away the morning dew, 

 Crook-knee'd and dew-lapped, like Thessalian bulls 

 Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth-like bells." 



From Maryland to Florida, and farther west, through Ken- 

 tucky and Alabama to Mississippi and Louisiana, fox-hunting 

 next to deer hunting is the favorite amusement of sportsmen, 

 and the chase of that animal may in fact be regarded ex- 

 clusively as a southern sport in the United States, as the fox 

 is never followed on horseback in the North, where the rocky 

 and precipitous character of the surface in many districts 

 prevents the best riders from attempting it ; whilst in others, 

 our sturdy, independent farmers would not like to see a dozen 

 or more horsemen leaping through fences, and with break- 

 neck speed gallopping through the wheat-fields, or other "fall" 

 crops. Besides, the Red Fox, which is more generally found 

 in the northern States than the gray species, runs so far 

 before the dogs that he is seldom seen, although the huntsmen 

 keep up with the pack,, and after a chase of ten miles, during 

 which he may not have been once seen, he perhaps takes 

 refuge in some deep fissure of a rock, or in an impenetrable 

 burrow, which of course ends the sport, very much to the 

 satisfaction of the fox. 



In the southern States, on the contrary, the ground is, in 

 many cases, favorable to this amusement, and the planter sus- 

 tains but little injury from the passing hunt, as the Gray 

 Fox usually courses through woods or worn out old fields, 

 keeping on high dry ground, and seldom, during the chase, 

 running across a cultivated plantation. 



In fox-hunting, it is well known that the horse usually 

 becomes as much excited as his rider; and at the cry of the 

 hounds, I have known an old steed, which had been turned 

 loose in the woods to pick up a subsistence, prick up his ears, 



