72 THE HUNTINC; FIELD 



after he did. There was a uni\-ersal exclamation, ' How did 

 you know a fox was there? ' 'While j'ou were talking,' said 

 he, ' I heard a cock pheasant " ceck up " three or four times, 

 evidently alarmed.' " 



How beautifully that fact corroborates Beckford's observa- 

 tion, that when you see two men in conversation at the cover 

 side, you may safely infer that one at least knows nothing of 

 what he is out for. 



All practical men agree in the necessity of a Huntsman being 

 efficiently supported by his Whippers-in. Mr. Vyner, in his 

 " Notitia Venatica," says : — 



" Nothing will be found to be of greater importance in the 

 well-conducting of operations than steadiness and persevering 

 exertions on the part of the Whippers-in ; servants of that 

 description are quite as difficult to meet with as a first-rate 

 Huntsman ; a Master, who ' puts up ' a booby of a groom, 

 merely because he can ride young horses and scream like a 

 fish-woman, must never expect to see his hounds anything 

 else than wild and vicious in their drawing, and heedless 

 and unhandy in their attention to the Huntsman when 

 casting." 



Mr. Smith, in his " Diary of a Huntsman," says: — 



" To be a Whipper-in requires both a good eye and a good 

 ear ; but the greatest qualification for one is, that he should be 

 free from conceit, so that he will consider it right to obey the 

 Huntsman most implicitly, whether he thinks him right or 

 wrong, and not hesitate, but at once instantly do what is 

 required : then he does his dut}', but not till then." 



Mr. Smith is of the same opinion as Mr. Beckford as to the 

 importance of a clever Whipper-in, and says that men who 

 have hunted their own hounds ha\'e often felt a wish to become 

 Whippcrs-in, knowing, as they do, that it is possible for a good 

 Whipper-in to do more towards the sport most da3's than the 

 Huntsman. The thing, he says, is to find a man who does not 



