NOTITIA VENATICA. 29 



One of the greatest tli-awbacks to fox-] muting is the enormous ex- 

 pense attending it, and, as the great John Warde used to say of the 

 Pytchley Hunt dinners, when he hunted Northamjitonshire forty years 

 ago, they are all very delightful and agreeable, exeejjting the paying 

 for them. In many of the first hunting establishments, each fox that 

 is killed costs about £50 for his funeral expenses, allowing fifty brace 

 of foxes to be killed annually ; this, of course, includes many contingent 

 expenses, besides absolutely the keep of hounds, horses, and servants. 



According to the ancient custom of hunting, the animals pursued in 

 that diversion were divided into three classes. 



The first class (termed beasts of hunting) were the hare, the hart, the 

 wolf, and the wild boar. 



The second class (termed beasts of chase) were the buck, the doe, 

 the fox, the marten, and the roe. 



The third class were — •the badger, the wild cat, and the otter; 

 Avhich showed " great dysporte." The fox is also classed by some 

 old authors among the beasts of " stinking flight, " to distinguish 

 them from the beasts of " sweet flight," as the buck, doe, hare, and 

 some others. 



But, as the fox is the only one of this number, the chase of which 

 belongs to the contents of this volume, I shall content myself with 

 treating on the hunting of that animal alone, although I may occasion- 

 ally refer to other beasts of chase, and bring forward anecdotes con- 

 nected with them. The old laws relative to hunting are supposed to 

 have been introduced into this country by the Saxons, as no mention is 

 made of their existence previous to that period. The first mention, 

 however, of the employment of the dog in the pursuit of other animals 

 is in Oppian's Cynegeticus. Pollux is said to have used the dog in 

 hunting, about two hundred years after the propagation of the Levitical 

 law. Canute, the Dane, was also much attached to the chase, and 

 enacted many laws for the preservation of the game in the royal forests, 

 granting at the same time to proprietors of estates the privilege of 

 hunting on their own lands and woods ; this prince also prohibited the 

 exercise of hunting or hawking on the Sabbath-day.* 



According to the accounts given by various authorities, these laws 

 were exceedingly severe ; they have by degrees, however, been repealed, 

 and, although the legislature has given protection to the preservers 

 of deer, pheasants, &c., the chase of the fox is alone counte- 

 nanced by sufi'erance, and supported by by-laws framed and acknow- 

 ledged by the admirers of the sport. These laAvs refer chiefly to the 

 lines of demarcation which divide one fox-hunting country from another; 

 or, in other words, what covers a master of hounds shall enter to draw 

 for a fox, without trespassing upon lands within the acknowledged 

 boundary of the country hunted by another established pack of hounds, 

 a transgression beyond which is considered by the hunting world dis- 

 honourable and unsportsman-like. 



* Leges Canuti apud Lambord, cup. 77, from Strutt. 



