SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



marten) are very common here, and are val- 

 uable on account of their skins. The first 

 sells for eightpence in the market, and the 

 latter for four shillings and sixpence.' In 

 these circumstances it is open to question, 

 in the absence of actual evidence, whether 

 the foulmart was viewed as an object of 

 sport before the close of the eighteenth 

 century. We have not noticed any record 

 of it. Be that as it may, from the oral testi- 

 mony of persons still living, we can carry 

 back the traditions of foulmart hunting as 

 a sport till within a few years of 1800. For 

 instance, Mrs. Stordy of Thurstonfield, now 

 in her eighty-seventh year, the wife and mother 

 of foulmart hunters, remembers well that the 

 sport evoked the enthusiasm of that district 

 when she was ' quite a little girl.' From 

 the evidence before us we may conclude 

 that this form of pastime was a creation of 

 the nineteenth century. Old sportsmen used 

 to look back to the ' fifties ' and ' sixties ' 

 as the halcyon days of foulmart hunting in 

 Cumberland. As the practice has been ex- 

 tinct for ten years or so, it may be said that 

 the sport was peculiar to the Victorian era. 

 One never hears nowadays of a hunt. The 

 animal is very scarce and the keenest hunts- 

 men shake their heads when you suggest 

 the possibility of the revival of the recrea- 

 tion. 



It is a debatable point among sportsmen 

 whether the night or early morning was the 

 best time for hunting the foulmart. The 

 advocates of a ' good moonlight night ' con- 

 tend that as the ' quarry ' was only abroad 

 between sundown and sunrise the practice 

 could not be reckoned a sport unless there 

 was a possibility of seeing the game and 

 killing it before it reached its lair or hiding 

 place. It was under the encouraging light of 

 the moon, they say, ' that the drag was 

 hottest, and the pace was breakneck* as the 

 hounds gave tongue that they were in touch 

 with the game. Our inquiries lead us to the 

 belief that most of the hunting in Cumberland 

 was done in the early hours of the morning. 

 The scent remained on the ground from eight 

 to ten hours, and at certain times of the year, 

 or on a damp morning, for a much longer 

 time. The months 'with the "r's" in them.' 

 that is, the months from September to April, 

 were considered the best. But the month 

 which ranked foremost was April, for it was 

 then the foulmart left the heaviest ' drag ' be- 

 hind him : it was the rutting season when 

 ' hob,' or the dog foulmart was apt to wander 

 a great distance during the night in search 

 of a mate. It was the habit of John Peel, 

 the famous Cumberland foxhunter, as soon as 



the hunting season was over, that is, about 

 the end of March, to pick out half a dozen 

 of the older deep-toned foxhounds and to 

 continue his sport in hunting the foulmart till 

 the middle of May. This mighty hunter 

 was in favour of employing the slow hounds 

 of his pack for the purpose. In the depth of 

 winter, when the weather was too cold for 

 otter hunting, some of the hounds were turned 

 on to the foulmart with more or less success. 

 But the more experienced sportsmen say that 

 hounds should be trained specially for the foul- 

 mart, as foxhounds and otter hounds never 

 become experts in this kind of sport. Any 

 hound with a good nose may afford a pleasant 

 outing to the generality of people, but 'sport ' 

 can only be obtained by the employment of 

 the foulmart hound. The number of hounds 

 varied according to the nature of the ground 

 and the idiosyncrasy of the huntsman. Some 

 authorities advocate as many as eight couples ; 

 but as a rule it had been found that two 

 couples with a good terrier were quite suffi- 

 cient to make satisfactory sport. 



The genius of the foulmart hound was 

 tested to the best advantage when the trail 

 was struck ' heel-way,' that is to say, when the 

 hounds took up the scent and ran in the di- 

 rection from which the ' quarry ' had come, 

 and not in the direction in which it had 

 gone. In morning hunting this contingency 

 was always possible. If hounds accustomed to 

 hunting the otter or the fox were employed, one 

 might follow the chase for hours and find 

 at the finish that he had arrived at the spot 

 in which the foulmart had slept through 

 the previous day. 



Mr. Henry C. Howard has recorded some 

 curious incidents l which illustrate the lu- 

 dicrous aspect of the sport. He relates that 

 ' the hounds on being let out of the kennels 

 struck a drag at once, and a long run ensued, 

 finishing on Skiddaw, or, as he should per- 

 haps have said, beginning there, as it was 

 from Skiddaw that the quarry had started on 

 her wanderings : so the return journey had to 

 be undertaken, and on arrival at the kennels 

 the foulmart was discovered actually lying under 

 the building from which the hounds had set off 

 in the morning ! ' One day at Isel, so Mr. F. 

 Wybergh informed him, a foulmart bolted 

 out of a stone-heap, and was immediately 

 killed. Directly afterwards the hounds went 

 on the scent for a distance of four miles over 

 the Haigh, nearly to Cockermouth, and 

 straight back to the same stone-heap where 

 they had killed in the morning, thus killing 



1 The Badminton Magazine of Sports and Pastimei, 

 May, 1900, No. 58, pp. 524-31. 



453 



