244 MANAGEMENT OF HOUNDS. 



then endeavour to shake off the hounds by running wide 

 rings, and making back to his favourite haunts again. 



In the months of February and March dog foxes 

 travel long distances to meet their ladies fair, and we 

 have then the best runs. At those times, however, I 

 have sometimes found that the old dog foxes were weak, 

 from being so much on foot, and from want, also, of food, 

 having their attention almost wholly engrossed by other 

 matters. Foxes, also, at this particular season of the 

 year, often have severe battles. A woodman once told 

 me that, upon going early in the morning to his work, 

 he found two dog foxes jfighting so savagely, that they 

 did not notice his approach, and that he might have killed 

 one or both with his heavy walking stick. I remember, 

 with a hot sun the beginning of March, killing a brace 

 of fine dog foxes in the same day, which came very un- 

 expectedly to hand, and this I attribute to their being 

 nearly fagged out before they were found by the hounds. 

 Nothing tells so much upon a fox as heat, and although 

 a glaring sun and keen wind in the month of March are 

 prejudicial to scent, knowing well the effect produced by 

 heat on the fox, I would always persevere, and trust to 

 the chapter of accidents to carry me through, scent or no 

 scent, until we succeeded at last in overhauling Mr. 

 Reynolds — often in a very unexpected manner.^ 



In a future letter I shall endeavour to relate how foxes 

 were once brought to book by a master of foxhounds 

 without any scent at all, and how they were made to 

 break covert by another without any hounds. Clever, 

 indeed, must we all admit Mr. Wiley to be, when the 

 brains of so many heads have been racked to outwit him, 

 and little is the fair play he meets with. 



