230 HORSES AND HOUNDS. 



must also remember that tlie weatlier was, during this period, 

 unusually mild, and the days as genial as in the spring of the 

 year. Water, when at a certain temperature, has also an attrac- 

 tive and, I conceive, a retentive power. This may be tested by 

 placing a basin full of water in a room recently painted ; it will 

 soon be impregnated with the effluvium arising from the paint, 

 though all the doors and windows are wide open. Over rapidly- 

 jQowing streams, however, there can be no scent but that which 

 hangs on the air, or may be wafted across from the opposite 

 bank, and sometimes none at all beyond the pad scent, which is 

 left on the brink where the fox has taken the water. 



I have often seen hounds run down to a river, cast up and 

 down the bank to satisfy themselves the fox was not on their 

 side, then return to the point to which tliey had carried the 

 scent, and at once dash into the current. This has been on bad 

 scenting days, when there has not been sufficient scent across the 

 stream to direct them over it. There is an opinion entertained 

 by many good sportsmen, and I have known masters of hounds 

 hold the same, that when a fox lingers in the chase, he leaves a 

 stronger scent behind him than when running fast. This is not, 

 in my opinion, however, the case, but just the reverse. I write 

 from observation, although it does not very often happen that 

 we have opportunities of testing this by ocular demonstration ; 

 jet, upon one or two occasions, I have witnessed such an occur- 

 rence, and I will relate an instance of it. 



We found a good fox, upon a fair scenting day, at the extre- 

 mity of our vale country, and ran him for more than an hour at 

 a rattling pace, through the entire length of the grass-land, and 

 away, then, for the open downs. The casualties that occurred 

 in this chase, over very stiff enclosures, told tales upon our field ; 

 and before we began to ascend a steep and long hill leading on 

 to the doAvns, the company with the hounds had become very 

 select, numbering only about half-a-dozen of our best riders. 

 The few last fences before leaving the vale were of a heart- 

 reliding description, with ditches wide and deep enough to hold 

 man and horse, and many were the occupants they found. My 

 friend Bob, being of the wetter weight order, found some of 

 them quite as much as he could grapple with on his big brown 

 horse, who had begun to cry " bellows to mend ; ' and being up to 

 a wrinkle or two, he had selected as his companion a sport:' ng 

 character of some celebrity in our hunt, who, from his rather 

 unprepossessing appearance, had obtained the sobriquet of 

 " Beauty." Bob had been sailing along with his companion, 

 prudently giving him the lead as pioneer over these tremendous 

 yawners, under the pretence that his own horse was nearly, if 



