THE WILLEY KENNELS. 85 



sent but little thouglit of. Hounds merely draw 

 over ground most likely to liold tlie game they are 

 in quest of, and thus, in a great measure, rely upon 

 chance for coming across it ; for if a challenge be 

 heard, it can only be inferred that a fox has been on 

 foot in the night — the scent being seldom sufficient 

 to carry the hoimds up to his kennel. Advantages, 

 however, as far as sport is concerned, attend the 

 present hour of meeting in the field, independently 

 of the misery of riding many miles in the dark, 

 which sportsmen in the early part of the last century 

 were obliged to do. The game, when it is now 

 aroused, is in a better state to encounter the great 

 speed of modern hounds ; having had time to digest 

 the food it has partaken of in the night previous to 

 its being stirred. But it is only since the great in- 

 crease of hares and foxes that the aid of the trail 

 and drag could be dispensed with without the fre- 

 quent recurrence of blank days, which now seldom 

 happen. Compared with the luxurious ease with 

 which the modern sportsman is conveyed to the field 

 — either lolling in his chaise and four, or galloj^ing 

 along at the rate of twenty miles an hour on a 

 hundred- guinea hack — the situation of his predeces- 

 sor was all but distressing. In proportion to the 



