HORSES AND HOUNDS. 259 



talents, which only required to be rightly directed. Jim Hills 

 is by all accounts quite at the top of bis profession, and, if we 

 are to judge by the runs chronicled in BeWs Life from the 

 Heythrop country, has shown extraordinary sport. From pri- 

 vate information, however, I learn that he is one of the quickest 

 and best huntsmen of the present day, and will never give up a 

 fox as long as his hounds can hold on the line. This perse- 

 vering through difficulties not only proves a good huntsman, 

 but makes also a good pack of hounds. Treadwell has now for 

 several seasons given great satisfaction in ]\Ir, Farquharson's 

 country. He was for some time Mr. Codrington's right hand, 

 and I always thought him calculated in every respect to make a 

 first-rate huntsman. His brother Charles also, who was entered 

 by ^Ir. Wyndham, and lived many years in Mr. Horlock's 

 service, is now at the head of an establishment at Bramham 

 Moor, and it is not for want of natural talent and good instruc- 

 tion if he does not afford that sport as a huntsman which he so 

 largely contributed to when a whipper-in. In that capacity he 

 might have been equalled, but was never surpassed by any. So 

 much for gentlemen huntsmen and their proteges. 



CHAPTEE XL. 



On trapping foxes — How to foil fox-killing keepers — Bag-foxes — Difference 

 of scent — Eun with one — Eiding too close upon the pack — Hard riders 

 and good riders to hounds — Advice to young sportsmen — The balance 

 seat — Look before you leap into a pond — A good rider should never part 

 company with his horse, unless both are down together — The Centaur 

 seat. 



The question has been proposed to me, how to prevent foxes 

 being caught by pheasant preservers, and the querist has stated, 

 that a friend of his had some traps made with light springs, so 

 as merely to hold, and not maim, a fox ; and that those foxes 

 which had been once caught, were proof against steel traps ever 

 afterwards. This plan I have tried, and it is by no means a bad 

 one, but in these enlightened days, where one fox is destroyed 

 by traps, ten are killed by poison. Old foxes are very shy of 

 approaching a dead bait ; but if the rabbit or pheasant they 

 have killed, and half buried, be found, and a trap placed on the 

 spot, the fox will most probably be caught. There are, also, 

 many other ways of catching foxes in traps, which I will not 

 mention, for fear some gentlemen in velveteen may, perchance, 



