390 THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



days. However, to make assurance doubly sure, when a 

 litter of cubs is known to be on dangerous ground, let 

 them be moved, by stinking the mouth of the earth, when 

 the vixen will carry them off. As to purchasing foxes, 

 that expedient need not be resorted to in your country : 

 it is a bad system altogether, the greater part of them 

 being mangy. 



" Draw your covers closely, especially those of gorse, 

 with which your country abounds. I have seen foxes left 

 in them, frequently, after hounds have been drawing for 

 at least half an hour. They lie very close in such places, 

 and, even when found, are often difficult to force out of 

 them, by reason of the ground becoming stained, if a ring 

 or two is taken. Be sure you do not omit drawing your 

 outlying covers regularly at stated periods of the season, 

 and always throw off near the place fixed. It may not 

 matter to many of your field whether or not they may 

 have to trot away four or five miles before you begin 

 drawing ; but farmers and others, who have very short 

 studs perhaps only one hunter are much discomfited 

 by it. A brother master of hounds fixes for three weeks 

 in advance, which renders his hunt popular ; but it is not 

 every country that will admit of it. 



"Should you have occasion to make gorse covers, 

 observe these hints from one who has made many. The 

 ground is all the better for being trenched to the depth of 

 from a foot to a foot and a half ; and it should be made 

 as clean and in as good condition as if it were to be the 

 seed-bed of turnips. The seed should also be minutely 

 examined, as it often fails from having lost its germinat- 

 ing properties ; and it should be drilled in the ground 

 and hoed, after the manner of a turnip crop. By keeping 

 it clean by the hoe, it will, if the seed be good, and the 

 land made dry, often hold a fox in the second year, but 

 will seldom fail in the third. A brother master of hounds 

 recommends sowing broom with gorse, but he is wrong, it 

 being decidedly inimical to scent. All artificially made 

 covers should be not nearer than half a mile, at the least, 

 to any house or village ; and if on a gently sloping bank, 

 facing the south, or south-west, foxes will like them the 

 better. 



" Bred up as you have been, it is scarcely necessary to 

 remind you of your general conduct towards your field, 

 composed, as it will be, of some of the first sportsmen in 



