SCIENCE OF FOXHUNTING. 127 



being allowed to carry it with them ; and were it 

 not for cub-hunting and an occasional woodland day 

 during the season, when they must hunt, they 

 would trust more to their ears and eyes than their 

 noses. It is a nice point to determine how much 

 tongue hounds rnay give without being really what 

 we call noisy. 



Fast men do not care a rap about the melody of 

 a pack of foxhounds, and such would be of little 

 consequence to them, provided they could get a 

 good start for a quick burst. Genuine foxhunters, 

 however, delight in a full chorus, and they are right, 

 for more reasons than one. There is something 

 cheering and exhilarating in the cry of hounds ; 

 even the horses we ride are wonderfully excited by 

 it, and from this very excitement strain all their 

 nerves to keep near them. 



"Me other joys invite, 

 The horn sonorous calls, the pack awak'd. 

 Their matins chaunt, nor hrook my long delay. 

 My courser hears their voice ; see there, with ears 

 And tail erect, neighing he paws the ground ; 

 Fierce rapture kindles in his red'ning eyes, 

 And boils in every vein." 



When running in large coverts, how are we to 

 know their whereabouts, except by that cry, par- 

 ticularly in windy weather, and when sometimes 

 giving us the slip out of them, what else have we 

 to guide us in the direction they have taken ? A 

 liffht-tonofued — we don't mean a mute hound — 

 may find his fox, if wide of the pack, and be off 

 and away with him before the others could hear 

 him, and it does not necessarily follow that this 



