1 86 Cross Country with Horse and Hound 



taking three or four youngsters with him. But he has 

 not gone a rod before crack ! crack ! goes the whipper-in's 

 crop, Hke the report of a gun, straight at the false leader's 

 side. " Ware rabbit. Puppy ! Ware rabbit ! " A few strides 

 of the spur-pricked mount places the whipper-in in posi- 

 tion to head the puppies off, and the tooting horn of the 

 huntsman calls them back to the line of the hunted fox. 



So the day is spent breaking in the new entry, permitting 

 them to kill two or three cubs, to get the young hounds 

 well blooded. But this is only half the object of cub- 

 hunting. The young foxes need educating as well as the 

 hounds. The first covert drawn is one where there is sure 

 to be a litter, and one object, so far as the young foxes are 

 concerned, is to bustle them about, so that when the regular 

 season opens and they hear hounds coming, they will break 

 covert quickly. No sportsman likes to hear of hounds 

 " chopping " a fox in covert. They desire to give him 

 plenty of law, a very generous start, and then catch him if 

 they can. It is not sport to take game at a disadvantage. 

 To the genuine sportsman it is something shocking to see 

 a man hunting rabbits with a ferret. The ferret is sent into 

 the burrow, out bolts the rabbit, and the gunner with a shot- 

 gun at the mouth of the hole blows the top of bunny's head 

 off. Or he gets some blank cartridges and a hundred feet 

 of fuse, fastens the fuse to a cartridge, and with a piece of 

 wire rams the cartridge in a burrow. Bang! goes the 

 cartridge, and out bolts the rabbit or fox to certain death. 

 Shame on the men who call this sport ! They are not 

 sportsmen, but butchers. Sportsmen of this calibre ought 

 to go home, rope an ox, draw him on the barn floor, and 



