SCIENCE OF FOXHUNTING. 301 



dust ; SO it is very clear that water does not 

 prove a non-conductor of scent. We find water 

 possesses the power of attracting and retaining the 

 effluvia of odours which, save for its magnetic in- 

 fluence, would be dispersed in other directions down 

 the wind and down the stream. The case may be 

 somewhat altered in staghunting ; yet, wherever the 

 deer emerges from the stream, and shakes himself 

 from the water, there the hounds can have no diffi- 

 culty in taking up the running. 



Beckford says : — '' Could a foxhound distinguish 

 his hunted fox as the deerhound does the deer that 

 is blown, foxhunting would then be perfect.'^ This 

 assertion has been cavilled at by other sporting 

 writers better up, to use a scholastic term, in theory 

 than practice. One ounce of experience is worth 

 two pounds of theory ; and we have witnessed scores 

 of times — hundreds we might safely say — our own 

 deerhounds pursuing a blown deer through and 

 through an entire herd, without deviating right or 

 left, or flushing away upon another scent, until they 

 disengaged him from his comrades, more anxious to 

 evade than befriend him. 



Having both red and fallow deer in our park — not 

 an over extensive one — some of the latter would occa- 

 sionally break bounds, and betake themselves to the 

 adjoining woods, from which we had to dislodge 

 them, not by harriers, or foxhounds turned into 

 staghounds pi'O hac vice, but by two or three 

 squeaking fast resolute terriers, trained to the 

 purpose, which Avould not stop short at any other 

 inferior game, such as hares or rabbits. The deer- 



