HUNTING THE FOX 79 



and correct use of the horn and voice at an earlier 

 phase. Prevention is better than cure. The Hunts- 

 man as a general rule ought to be able to produce 

 all his pack at any given moment, and should be 

 miserable if any of them are missing. Nor is it a 

 good sign if you ride up to a whipper-in in a wood- 

 land and ask him where the Huntsman is, and he 

 says, " I don't know, I have not heard him for a 

 long time." This may be the boy's own fault for 

 getting too far up wind — a not uncommon failing — 

 but as often as not it is due to vagueness and lack 

 of thought on the part of the Huntsman ; the 

 Huntsman who is best served is he who makes 

 himself the most intelligible to the Hounds, his 

 men, and his Field. 



So much for technique, or the control of the 

 mechanical aids to the chase. What other qualities, 

 besides the power to use these aids effectively, 

 should distinguish the Huntsman with whom we 

 should all like to hunt ? Many pages have been 

 written setting them forth. If, indeed, he enjoys 

 the equipment of body and mind that Mr. Jorrocks 

 demanded in his famous advertisement for a Hunts- 

 man at the head of the nineteenth chapter of 

 Handley Cross, he should go very far. In accepting 

 James Pigg, Mr. Jorrocks certainly had to dispense 

 with a great many of the perfections that he postu- 

 lated in the columns of the Handley Cross Paul Pry. 

 No wonder that the advertisement produced " an 



