206 MANAGEMENT OF HOUNDS. 



not given up to the hounds. At the time I remarked 

 that the probability was we should not find him again, 

 even if he survived the dressing we had given him that 

 day, neither was it fair towards the hounds, who were 

 then thirty miles from their kennel. This fox we found 

 at nearly three o'clock in the afternoon, in some wood- 

 lands, where he hung for half an hour ; he then broke 

 away over a fine grass vale, and crossed the open downs 

 for several miles, where our horses were sadly beaten, 

 some obliged to stop entirely. Upon leading my horse 

 down the last hill off the downs I saw the hounds run- 

 ning their fox in view into a small fir plantation, and I 

 of course concluded they had him. Hearing the hounds 

 baying, I did not hurry myself, thinking it was all over. 

 Upon reaching the spot, however, I found that the fox, 

 in jumping the bank, had rushed into a single rabbit 

 pipe, which only extended through it, and so close was 

 he to the hounds, that he bit their noses when trying to 

 grub him out. Under such circumstances, there was 

 only one thing to do, but I was fool enough for once in 

 my life to listen to the suggestions of a friend, and spare 

 this fox, at the expense of my hounds, who had so well 

 deserved him ; they had then to travel home thirty weary 

 miles in a dark cold night. This fox I had viewed several 

 times before he broke covert. 



I never found him again until two years afterwards, 

 although constantly and regularly hunting the same 

 country. He then gave us the most sharp, short, and 

 decisive run which, perhaps, ever occurred to a pack of 

 hounds. Our fixture upon this occasion was made to 

 draw a small but thick gorse covert on the downs, and 

 the place of meeting being within distance of two or 



