140 NOTITIA YENATTCA. 



There are, undoubtedly, some few first-rate performers as " gentle- 

 tlemen huntsmen ;" but, taking all things into consideration, a master 

 of hounds had mucli better give uj) that part of the business to " a 

 professional :" according to the modern state of affairs, they are not in 

 their places; and as Mr, Bunn, in his book entitled "The Stage," 

 justly observes that, when " actors are managers and actors too, they 

 certainly labour under a great disadvantage." The " nascitur non fit" 

 is c([ually applicable to huntsmen as poets ; moreover, for a man to 

 fancy he is entirely to learn tlie way to liunt a pack of hounds, upon 

 paper, is absurd ; his actions must be guided by circumstances ; and 

 although there are no imniutahlc rules for drawing, casting, or following 

 the line of a fox, still I will endeavour to give a few hints upon these 

 subjects, and how to assist a pack, when necessary, over a country. In 

 drawing covers, the more usual method is to give the hounds the benefit 

 of the wind ; but I really think that precaution is needless, excepting 

 in lai-ge woodlands, and then either drawing against the wind, or rather, 

 with a side-wind, will be of great service to the pack, not only in finding, 

 but in getting together ; moreover, a fox will not be so likely to get a 

 long start, and shp away with perhaps only a couple or two of hounds, 

 hearing and more especially winding them as he v:onlcl for nearly half 

 a mile, Avhen they Avere approaching the cover down wind. Foxes, and 

 indeed almost all wild animals, trust more to their noses than they do 

 to the power of their visionary organs. Look, for example, at the wild 

 duck, and we may even add all kinds of game. Though hounds in 

 drawing should be controlled to a certain extent, and so drilled that 

 they should draw each quarter of a cover by itself and Avith regularity, 

 still they should be allowed to range, and encouraged as much as pos- 

 sible to trust to their own exertions to find a fox by his drag, and not 

 expect him to be Avhipped up for them as they crowd round the hunts- 

 man's horse, or wait to be halloed to a disturbed fox, as is not unfre- 

 quently the system. If there are some low meadows on the side of a 

 Avood about to be drawn as the first cover in the morning, it is not a bad 

 plan to Avalk quietly up them while waiting for the arrival of the field. 

 A huntsman who knows anything Avill, see with half an eye by the old 

 hounds, although their indications Avill hardly amount to feathering, if 

 there arc foxes in the neighbourhood ; as, if there are, they would, 

 nineteen times out of twenty, have come off their feed from these mea- 

 dows, having been amusing themselves during the previous night in 

 huntiuf the moles and lai'ge field-mice Avliich abound in such places, and 

 which luidoubtedly form the chii'f food of not only foxes, but of most 

 wild animals of prey, from the wolf to the weazel. You will almost in- 

 varial)ly find in the same quarter of a cover, provided that jiart has not 

 been cut too lately : there is something attractive in peculiar sjiots, 

 whether from dryness or shelter, Avhich induces foxes to kennel about 

 the same identical hillock or bank year after year ; and avo may see the 

 same thing in partridge-shooting, Avhere Ave invariably find a coA'ey of 

 bii'ds, not only year after year and day after day, but even several tunes 

 in the same day, exactly in the same identical part of a field, Avhether it 

 be Avheat, turnips, or any other crop. It' in drawing a coA'^cr you liave 



