36 THE COMPLETE FOXHUNTER 



possible to get into communication with every shoot- 

 ing tenant in his hunt. It also goes far towards prov- 

 ing that many keepers will hoodwink not only the hunt, 

 but their own master, in their attempts to keep hounds 

 out of their coverts. And scores of shooting tenants 

 are entirely in the hands of their keepers, believing 

 every word the keeper says, and acting on his advice as 

 if it was the best in the world. Many worthy men who 

 take shootings have little or no knowledge of country 

 life, or even of the sport they are taking up. They 

 must, at first at all events, depend upon their game- 

 keepers for information on a whole host of subjects, 

 and when a keeper gives a false or highly coloured 

 description of the enormities of the fox, and goes on 

 to state that no one in the district really preserves, that 

 the hunt takes care that foxes are turned down wher- 

 ever hounds go, and that there is absolutely no need to 

 have a fox on the ground, they often believe him be- 

 cause they know no better. 



There are, of course, thousands of shooting tenants 

 who are true sportsmen in every sense of the word, 

 and in their hands a hunt will always be quite safe, 

 but there are, at the same time^ shooting muffs as 

 there are hunting muffs, and the former are often the 

 most gullible of individuals. 



Coming to London by a South-Western train one 

 November evening two years ago, after a day's hunting, 

 we were joined at Guildford by a man carrying a 

 gun and two or three brace of pheasants. He at once 

 opened conversation, told us where he had been shoot- 

 ing (he had changed from a branch train and the 

 place was not very near Guildford), and described his 

 sport at length. He then began to question us about 

 our hunting, and remarked that he had luckily got a 



