92 SYSTEM OF KENNEL AND 



CHAPTER XII. 



" Oh ! there is sweetness in the morning air, 

 That sloth and luxury must vainly hope to share." 



The twofold, use of cub-hunting — Barring out young foxes — Shyness 

 of fox family — Main earths — Untenable objections to them — 

 Poachers, and their modus ojjei'cmdi — Former value of foxes — 

 "Light come, light go" — Fence months to other game no defence 

 to foxes — The May fox and July cub — Early cub-hunting re- 

 commended — Difference between grass and arable countries — 

 Hardness of gi'ound injurious to hounds' feet — Easy places and 

 short work — Early imj^ressions most lasting — When to let well 

 alone — Marking to ground — Scene at a coalpit. 



CuB-HUNTiNG is not more necessary for instructing 

 young foxhounds in the wiles of the game they are 

 to pursue, than for making young foxes acquainted 

 with the enemies they have to avoid. Cubs require 

 routing to force them from home, and seek shelter 

 in more distant coverts ; and when the door of the 

 house is locked in which they have hitherto found 

 refuge, they are obliged to look out for other 

 lodgings. We can well imagine the feeling of the 

 houseless desolates, when first barred out from the 

 homes of their happy cubhood, about which they 

 have been wont to gambol in the twilight, as soon 

 as the setting sun had disappeared beneath the 

 horizon — with what eagerness to rush to the spot 

 where the buzzing of beetle or cockchafer gives 



