THE COMPLETE FOXHUNTER 



CHAPTER I 

 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 



IT is an interesting, but none the less curious, fact 

 that no accurate date can be fixed in connection 

 with the earliest foxhunting ; all the evidence 

 which is forthcoming on the point being scanty, at 

 times contradictory, and very often speculative. Facts 

 indeed are wanting, and thus at the moment it is 

 claimed for nearly half a dozen packs of hounds that 

 they are the oldest in the kingdom, and hitherto no 

 seeker after information has been able to prove a clear 

 case for any one of them. What is quite certain is 

 that previous to the commencement of the eighteenth 

 century the stag, the buck, and the hare were the most 

 important beasts of the chase, and that the fox was 

 generally regarded as vermin, and most certainly had 

 hardly begun to acquire the initial stages of the great 

 reputation he was to enjoy a generation or two later. 



Hunting had, however, been the chief sport of the 

 English people from the earliest times, and so far back 

 as during the period between 1307 and 1327 one 

 Guillaume Twici had written a manuscript on the 

 subject, which is generally supposed to be the oldest 

 English writing on hunting. To Xenophon, Arrian, 

 and others who wrote on hunting thousands of years 

 I 



