NOTITIA VENATICA. 121 



rectiou to the field where the horsemen were collected, he escaped nearly 

 to the liouso. The hounds, who had found the fox, but in a ring which 

 he had described in the cover, changed for the line of the bearer, who, 

 being lazy, had dragged the bag along the ground instead of carrying 

 it, when they fairly ran into him full cry, in view of the who^e field, who 

 were no doubt much amused at the stupidity of the fellow who had 

 marred the plot. 



A " Fi'iend to all Sports," in an excellent letter which appeared in a 

 popular sporting Aveekly paper some short time ago, very justly ob- 

 serves — " Give each sport its fair patronage ; encourage fox-hunting 

 with foxhounds, hare-hunting with harriers, but do not encourage them 

 to interfere with each other's game, and, above all, let the non-hunting 

 portion of the community know that half the pleasure of the chase con- 

 sists in giving the hunted animal a fair chance — a bag-fox never has ! 

 You might as well expect a convict escaped from the condemned cell of 

 Newgate to run as stout as a trained pedestrian, as a bag-fox to show 

 the sport of a wild one." 



Hounds always stick to that style of hunting they were first entered 

 to ; draft foxhounds ai'e too wide and flashy to hunt hares with in a 

 proper way, and harriers don't fling enough and get forward, especially 

 in a middling scent, to kill foxes. How curious it is too to see a pack 

 of harriers hunt an otter, when they have not been accustomed to that 

 description of chase : as soon as they come to anything like a check, 

 from the otter having dived, instead of persevering to work up to him in 

 the stream, and amongst the sedges by the river's side, they almost in- 

 variably commence trying away towards the meadow hedges, as the most 

 likely ground to hit him off", so difficult is it to overcome the first im- 

 pressions of their attempt to follow their game by its scent. 



Hounds should, undoubtedly, be kept to their own game, if they are 

 expected to hunt and run together in anything like decent order, and 

 with credit; playing tricks with drags of aniseed, or "nineted bag- 

 men,"* as old Tom Wingfield used to call them, is one of the most un- 

 pardonable insults that can be offered to a master of hounds ; but such 

 things have been done, to the everlasting disgrace of the perpetrators. 

 No doubt a pask of foxhounds would run anything they were capped on 

 to ; and some of those who read this book may recollect Mr. Osbaldestou 

 going to draw for a wolf, in the neighboiu-hood of Sibbertoft, which had 

 escaped from a caravan at Lutterworth, and had devoured a considerable 

 number of sheep. The wolf, however, was not found, but was after- 

 wards shot by some farmers near that place. The pack out on that day 

 was what the Squire called his Saturday pack, which consisted of a 

 mixed lot of dogs and bitches, considered inferior to either of his other 



* Some years ago, when Sir Thomas Mostyn hunted that part of Oxfordshire now 

 occupied by Mr. Drake, his fo.xes were much thinned by reason of a club of Oxford 

 Collegiims, who were in the habit of purchasing his foxes from the fox-catchers who 

 infested that neighbourhood, and hunting them with a scratch pack of harriers, 

 rubbing them over with aniseed to ensure a more burning scent. At that time Tom 

 Wingfield was Sir Thomas Mostyn's huntsman, and the worthy baronet got rid of 

 the nuisance by presenting these young sportsmen with a few couples of his draft 

 hounds, to hunt deer with instead. 



