96 Fox- Hunting in New England. 



ignominiously forth, but this savors strongly of pot-hunting. If he 

 has taken sanctuary in a rocky den, where pick and spade avail not, 

 there is nothing for it but to call the dogs off and try for another fox 

 to-day, or for this one to-morrow, when he shall have come forth 

 again. This is the manlier part, in either case, for Reynard has 

 fairly baffled you, has run his course and reached his goal in safety. 



Sometimes an old fox, when he hears the first note of the hounds 

 on the trail he made when he was mousing under the paling stars, 

 will arise from his bed, and make off at once over dry ledges, plowed 

 fields and sheep pastures, leaving for the dogs nothing but a cold, 

 puzzling scent, which, growing fainter as the day advances and the 

 moisture exhales,' they are obliged, unwillingly, to abandon at last, 

 after hours of slow and painstaking work. A wise old hound will 

 often, in such cases, give over trying to work up the uncertain trail, 

 and guessing at the direction the fox has taken, push on, running 

 mute, at the top of his speed, to the likeliest piece of woodland, a 

 mile away perhaps, and there, with loud rejoicings, pick up the trail. 

 When after a whole day's chase, during which hope and disappoint- 

 ment have often and rapidly succeeded each other in the hunter's 

 breast, having followed the fox with untiring zeal through all the 

 crooks and turns of his devious course, and unraveled with faultless 

 nose and the sagacity born of thought and experience his every 

 trick, — the good dogs bring him at the last moment of the gloaming 

 within range, and by the shot, taken darkling, Reynard is tumbled 

 dead among the brown leaves, great is the exultation of hunter and 

 hound, and great the happiness that fills their hearts. After tramping 

 since early morning over miles of the likeliest " starting-places " 

 without finding any trail, but cold and scentless ones made in the 

 early night, and so old that the dogs cannot work them out, as the 

 hunter takes his way in the afternoon through some piece of wood- 

 land, his hounds as discouraged as he, with drooping tails and 

 increased sorrow in their sad faces, plodding, dejected at heel, or 

 ranging languidly, — it is a happy surprise to have them halt, and 

 with raised muzzles and half-closed eyes, snuff the air, then draw 

 slowly up wind with elevated noses, till they are lost to sight behind 

 gray trunks and mossy logs and withered brakes, and then, with a 

 crashing flourish of trumpets, announce that at last a fox has been 

 found, traced to his lair bv a breeze-borne aroma so subtle that the 



