106 JTOTITIA VENATICA. 



liim upon the various subjects relative to entering young hounds, and 

 other matters connected with the chase. He considered it a most useless 

 and cruel practice to chastise and rate animals from that mischief which 

 in a few days they woidd not only have so many opportunities of in- 

 dulging in, hut be, as it were, encouraged to commit ; and that by too 

 early and severe a system of education, huntsmen not only cowed and 

 dispirited their young hoimds, but absolutely destroyed in a great mea- 

 sure that dash so requisite in a foxhound, or, in other words, " flogged 

 the fox completely out of them." While the body of old hounds are 

 running a fox with ever so good a cry, it is impossible for the young ones 

 to distinguish whether they arc running the hares which are continually 

 jumping up before them in cover and crossing them, or not ; but when 

 they have been blooded by two or three brace of foxes, and perceive that 

 they are not assisted by the old ones when pursuing hares and other riot, 

 they will soon learn to leave them, and join that part of the pack that 

 are settled to a fox. To gain this end, Wood considered that downright 

 hard work and perseverance wei*e the only means ; and no man ever 

 acted up to his own maxim in a more determined manner. I have seen 

 him frequently, in some of the largest and thickest covers in Warwick- 

 shire, with homids torn and cut all to pieces, absolutely walk up to a 

 beaten fox, which had been crawling before him Avith a miserable scent 

 for hours, and kill him at last ; I have seen him repeatedly do this when 

 another huntsman would have been dead beat by the heat of the morn- 

 ino- or the distance from his kennel, and have contented himself with 

 riding home and murdering a fresh fox in a gorse cover on the next hunt- 

 ing day, by way of keeping his pack in blood. Long tiling mornings in 

 the early part of the season, when the weather is hot, are by no means 

 to be recommended ; but one stout fox hunted fairly up to with a mode- 

 rate scent, in a large thick woodland, will do more good than killing six 

 brace in gorse covers or small hollow spinies. 



It is a question that has been often mooted amongst sportsmen, why 

 some packs of hounds are so much wilder and more vicious than others ; 

 whether ■sice descends in the blood, or if it proceeds from an injudicious 

 and unskilful management of the pack when at v:ork or exercise. I 

 should say, undoubtedly from both these sources, and also from other 

 causes, over which a huntsman has no control, viz., scarcity of foxes, 

 and the circumstance of covers and country being, in their nature, inac- 

 cessible to whippers-in. Hounds invariably imbibe the nature and tem- 

 perament of their huntsman, and are, according as they are generalled, 

 flighty or slov/ and plodding, shifty or line hunters, steady or incurable 

 hare-hunters, as the case may be. Although vice of all descriptions 

 (and none more so than unsteadiness in drawing, or, in other words, 

 speaking to a hare-scent) is proved to be transmitted, in the breed of 

 hounds, from one generation to another, still, a great deal towards eradi- 

 cating this evil maybe done, by persevering exertions, after cub-lumting 

 has commenced. Whei'e things are done on a grand scale, and there 

 are plenty of horses at command, there can be no excuse for vicious 

 hounds. On the rest-days, the rogues can, without trouble or inconve- 

 nience, be taken out early in a morning, well drilled amongst deer or 



