HOESES AND HOUNDS. 245 



CHAPTER XXXVIIL 



Diflference "between wild and woodland bred foxes — ^Difficulty sometimes of 

 making tliem break covert — Various experiments — The "black bitch" — 

 Smoking them out — Changes and expenses in hunting estabUshments at 

 the present day — Kennels in the grass countries — Sham and real friends 

 to foxes — Vixen and cubs — Earth-stopping in March — The whippers-ia 

 ought to visit the earths — Episode of Jim. 



It is a general remark that woodland foxes afford tlie best chases. 

 One reason is, that they always have a good start before the 

 hounds ; and another, that many of them are strangers there, 

 and have a point in \dew to run home to. Woodland bred foxes 

 are often tiresome brutes, that will hold to the covert, and wear 

 out a pack of hounds, by ringing round and foiling the ground 

 so much that the hounds cannot press them. A capital master 

 of hounds, who formerly hunted some very large woodlands, 

 containing two or three thousand acres each, was once asked by 

 a young and ardent sportsman, why he did not force the foxes 

 to fly. "Force them, indeed," exclaimed the indignant master, 

 " force your grandmother to suck eggs !" 



Unless large woodlands are hunted nearly once a week 

 throughout the season, the foxes bred there will not shift their 

 quarters ; but as now-a-days the fashion or fancy is all for gal- 

 loping and pace, the favourite places, such as small coverts, 

 gorses, and spinneys, are often called upon — so often, indeed, 

 that the foxes take refuge in the big woods. To secure a good 

 run, therefore, you must go away, if possible, with the first fox 

 that breaks ; he is sure to be a stranger. 



A very famous master of fox-hounds, quite at the head of 

 the list, some few years since, was so bothered in a large wood- 

 land (where foxes abounded) by their always beating his hounds, 

 that he had recourse to rather an unsportsmanlike method of 

 thinning their numbers, and bringing home a fox's head — we 

 cannot say in triumph. The keeper had received orders to stand 

 in some out of the way ride, where the foxes crossed, and after 

 the hounds had been running their allotted time of two hours 

 or so, and the coast was clear of riders in that direction, to give 

 Mr. Reynard, en jMssant, a salute in the rear, not for the pur- 

 pose of helping him on his already too fast career, but to stop 

 it short at once by breaking one of his legs, or otherwise maim- 

 ing him. . 



Another master of hounds who was out one day in these 

 woodlands hearing the report of a gun, and observing his old 



