SCIENCE OF FOXHUNTING. 367 



foxes until the 1st of November. They are not full 

 grown before that time, and hedges are not denuded 

 of their foliage even then ; moreover, foxhunting 

 would not be tolerated by agriculturists whilst their 

 corn remained standing in the field. On these ac- 

 counts, therefore, the opening day for foxhunters is 

 fixed for the 1st of November by general consent, 

 since foxes may be lawfully killed, like hares and 

 rabbits, every month in the year. From experience, 

 old sportsmen know that cold weather, frost, hail, 

 snow, and chilling storms militate greatly against 

 scent ; and the wonder is that foxhounds should be 

 able, in the face of all these dampers, to hold the 

 line of their game at all. Use has been called 

 second nature, and hounds, from becoming used to 

 fight through all these inclemencies, adapt them- 

 selves to the difficulties to be encountered. 



It has been truly said that no animal of the canine 

 species possesses so fine a nose as a thoroughbred 

 foxhound, and from experience we have good cause 

 to endorse this opinion. We have seen foxhounds 

 stoop to hunt hare, which beat all the old blue 

 mettled sort in the pack out and out at questing, as 

 it is called — i.e., speaking to the trail and hunting 

 her afterwards over every variety of soil; and this 

 was .done by hounds purchased from an old estab- 

 lished foxhound kennel, which had been proved 

 staunch to a fox scent only for tliree seasons. 



Beckford tells us a story — a true one, no doubt — 

 of a foxhound belonging to a neighbouring pack, 

 which joined his harriers one day by accident ; and, 

 as he ran faster and turned quicker with the scent 



