84 The Hunting Countries of England. 



just marked out with what may once have been a 

 hedge, but now is merely a thin broken hne of thorn 

 bushes : and a dogcart might be driven over the face 

 of the country for miles, without an upset or even a 

 damaged spring. On a real scenting day over such 

 ground, a fox positively cannot live before hounds if 

 they start on good terms with him. For there is none 

 of the scrambling, tailing, and difficulty that must 

 accrue to the best of packs when forcing its way 

 through and over a stiffly enclosed country. Where 

 fences are strongly built — too high to fly, and too 

 thick to let hounds more than dribble through — not 

 only the fox, but the field, have six to four the best of 

 the game, especially if the enclosures are small and 

 the fences, consequently, close together. In such a 

 case, Reynard slips through his chosen smeuse without 

 check or hindrance, and gains many a length at each ; 

 while the more keen and eager the hounds, the more 

 they tumble over and check one another — and the 

 more chance they give a jumping field to cut off 

 and interfere with them. Again, a beaten fox or 

 a bad one, will assuredly dodge up a hedgerow — 

 and does it, moreover, with the advantage that 

 the pack behind him is having a tiring scrimmage 

 of its own at every fence, that the quickest hound 

 to extricate himself is blowing the others, and that 

 the whole energies of the remainder are concen- 

 trated in the effort to squeeze past each other and 

 overtake the leader. On the downs, on the contrary, 

 Reynard gets no respite from the moment he starts. 

 He is half killed before he thinks of turning, and then 

 he has nowhere to turn. The worst thing that can 



