THE HUNTER. 267 



The hunter. — Special attention should be paid to giving 

 the hunter a good mouth and making him temperate, so 

 that he may use his powers to the best advantage, and 

 avoid bringing either himself or his rider to grief. To 

 meet the various conditions in which he may be placed 

 out hunting, especially in a large field and in a difficult 

 country, he ought to be taught to take his fences fault- 

 lessly, either fast or slow as his rider wishes, and equally 

 well with or without a lead. He ought to be capable of 

 being quickly stopped or readily turned, even when going 

 at a jump, and to bear such a disappointment without his 

 courage being thereby affected. This valuable attention 

 to his rider's signals can be cultivated by practice with 

 the long reins on foot. Above all things it is necessary 

 to teach him that when he gets the signal to go at a 

 jump, he must face it boldly without a thought of pulling 

 up or refusing, no matter how formidable it may appear. 

 A horse broken and schooled in this manner will know, if he 

 be prevented at any time from jumping, that his rider 

 acted from reasonable cause, and not from timidity. I 

 may here point out that the ill effects which the presence 

 of a timid rider has on the temper of a horse is due, I feel 

 certain, not to the supposed discovery by the horse that 

 the man on his back is in a " funk " ; but to the animal 

 failing to understand the wishes of his rider. The horse 

 will trust himself to no one whose signals are not clearly 

 intelligible to him. Furthermore, the well-broken horse, 

 if kept facing a fence, while waiting, for instance, his turn 

 at the only practicable spot, will stand without impatience 

 until he receives the well-understood signal from hand and 



