268 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



and in an instant start off full gallop until he overtook the 

 pack, keeping in the run until the chase was ended. 



In the older southern States the modes of hunting the Gray 

 Fox are much alike. To the sound of winding horns the 

 neighboring gentry collect at an appointed place, each accom- 

 panied by his favorite dogs, and usually a negro driver to 

 manage them and keep them from starting deer. Mounted 

 on fine horses, accustomed to the sport, they send in the 

 hounds and await the start, chatting in a group, collected in 

 some by-road, or some high spot of open ground from which 

 they can hear every sound borne upon the breeze. Thickets 

 on the edges of plantations, briar patches, and deserted 

 fields covered with bloom-grass, are places where the fox is 

 most likely to have his bed. The trail he has left behind him 

 during his nocturnal rambles being struck, the hounds are 

 encouraged by the voices of their drivers to as great speed as 

 the devious course it leads them will permit. Now they scent 

 the trail the fox has left along the field, when in search of 

 partridges, meadow-larks, rabbits or field-mice ; presently 

 they trace his footsteps to some large log, from whence he has 

 jumped on to a worm-fence, and after walking a little way 

 on it, leaped a ditch and skulked towards the borders of a 

 marsh. Through all his crooked ways the sagacious hounds 

 unravel his trail, until he is suddenly roused, perchance from 

 a dreamy vision of fat hens, geese or turkeys, and with a 

 general cry, the whole pack, led on by the staunchest and 

 best dogs, open-mouthed and eager, join the chase. The 

 startled fox makes two or three rapid doublings, and then sud- 

 denly flies to a cover, perhaps a quarter of a mile off, and 

 sometimes thus puts the hounds off the scent for a few minutes, 

 as when cool and at first starting his scent is not so strong as 

 that of the Red Fox. 



After the chase has continued for a quarter of an hour or 

 so, and the animal is somewhat heated, his track is followed 



