vi THE LIFE OF A FOX 



carried into effect, it was to Hampshire that its Editor turned 

 first, and the earhest volume of the series is the work of a 

 Hampshire squire. 



Stat magni nominis umbra — it would be difficult to hit 

 upon a more thoroughly English name than Tom Smith. It 

 was borne simultaneously by two celebrated sportsmen in 

 Hampshire, namely, Thomas Assheton Smith of Tedworth 

 and Thomas Smith of Hill Place. Each was a master of 

 hounds for many years, and each had a whip called John 

 Sharpe ; so it is not sui'prising that confusion was common 

 between the two Tom Smiths and the two John Shai^pes. 



The author of the following works was Thomas Smith, 

 who lived at Hill Place, near Droxford, when he became 

 master of the Hambledon Hounds in 1825. He hunted this 

 country till 1829, when he took the Craven ; afterwards 

 becoming master of the Pytchley, at the time when the other 

 Tom Smith was hunting the Quorn. In 1848 he took the 

 Hambledon hounds a second time. 



Now although, as has been shown, Hampshire has always 

 been a hunting country in historic times, and probably long 

 before them, it does not carry a high reputation among 

 modem fox-hunters for the quality of its sport ; it is far 

 from being one of the flying countries. But in the Hamble- 

 don, Tom Smith hunted the best of the shire, and he certainly 

 managed to show some wonderful sport in it. His perform- 

 ance in the Craven country, killing ninety foxes in ninety- 

 one days hunting, is referred to with pardonable complacency 

 in the preface to The Diary of a Huntsman ; and, in fact, 

 taking into account that it was achieved in what is notori- 

 ously one of the worst scenting countries in Great Britain, 

 consisting in gi*eat part of Avoodland, this is a record which 

 none but a first-class workman need attempt to emulate. 



It is true that Tom Smith's method was not one on which 

 everybody could look with favour. It used to be said that it 

 was not the hounds that found a fox, but Tom Smith who 

 found it for them, and, having found it, he hunted it for them 



