SPORTSMAN 203 



anxiously quiet, with the hope of not attracting the 

 hounds by a word even, of so much consequence is 

 it just then ; forgetting that by prolonging the 

 check — which talking is hkely to do — they throw 

 away the advantages they have gained by being in 

 the first flight, and give the rest of the field time to 

 get up. 



Those men get on best with hounds in a sharp 

 run who always follow them through covers, even 

 if there is no ride, if possible. Unless a man has 

 been used to a woodland country, and has allowed 

 his horse to have his head, and to pick his own 

 way through a new-cut wood, stubs, etc., he had 

 better keep the track ; but if a man has nerve 

 enough to allow his horse to have his nose down 

 to his knees, and never to guide him through stubs, 

 the horse will not lame himself. The fact is, the 

 horse will be looking at one stub, and the man 

 at another ; so that when the horse is guided from 

 where he was looking and intended to step, it is 

 an even chance but that he knocks his legs to 

 pieces. 



Some years since a master of hounds, who hunted 

 them himself, paid the writer a A^sit at the end 

 of the season, and brought four hunters. He came 

 determined to see everything that happened during 



