viii THE LIFE OF A FOX 



credit. The sort of intuitive knowledge he displays in regard to what 

 is called " the run of a hunted fox " may be said to border upon instinct. 

 At all events, it is such as I have never seen or heard of in any other 

 huntsman ; and when we read in the preface to his book of his having 

 killed ninety foxes in ninety-one days in the Craven country, we might 

 almost say one half of them were killed by his hounds and the 

 other half by himself. Then what is my opinion of Mr. Smith as a 

 huntsman .'' It is told in a few words. He has proved that he can kill 

 foxes with any man in England, and his having killed so many good 

 old ones in his Hambledon country, and still more of all sorts in the 

 Craven country, notoriously a bad scenting one, makes good the 

 proverb that " handsome is that handsome does." Still I am compelled 

 to say I am not a general admirer of Mr. Smith's system of hunting 

 hounds — the system at least which he pursued when I saw him in the 

 two countries above mentioned. There was too much wildness in his 

 proceedings, too much of the man, if I may be allowed the expression, 

 and not enough of the hounds, to satisfy a lover of hunting. I admit 

 that there was something enthusiastically cheering in seeing him dash 

 through a strong cover, come out of it with the leading hound and, 

 with hat in hand and cheering halloo, ride away with the few couples 

 that came next, apparently thinking nothing of those left behind. 

 But where was his eye at this time ? — on his hounds .'' — often not, but 

 forward to some point which his intuitive knowledge of the line foxes 

 take induced him to believe his had taken ; and six times in ten he was 

 right. But the question is, Is this the way a pack of hounds should 

 get away from a cover with their fox .'' In my humble opinion it is not. 

 It is not doing the thing altogether in a workmanlike ^ style, or in that in 

 which fox-hunting should always be done. To carry on a scent with 

 safety, the body of the pack should do the work, and this never can be 

 the case when a few couples get away ahead, and the rest become blown 

 in getting up to them. Neither is this system altogether favourable to 

 sport. Foxes hallooed away and ridden after in this manner are very 

 apt to run short, either from fear or from want of wind, a fact proved 

 by the experience of woodland foxes generally standing longer before 

 hounds than those found in gorse covers, because they most commonly 

 have a chance to go quietly away. What is called bursting a fox, and 



^ "Workmanlike" it surely was, if the object of hunting be, as is 

 commonly supposed it is, to kill foxes in the open. Nimrod should 

 have used the epithet "artistic." But even from that point of view, 

 there is something to be said in favour of Tom Smith's system, in a bad 

 scenting country, by those at least who prefer a short gallop to puzzling 

 out a cold scent over leagues of plough. — Ed. 



