NOTITIA VENATICA. 145 



may then anticipate a alup, and by pulling up your horse, and ohscrving 

 which way the pack inclined before the check, you will be able (Avithout 

 casting) to hold them to the right or left accordingly. 



If casting is necessary, you should be directed by the pace, or degree 

 of scent which you brought to the spot where the hounds threw 

 up ; if you came quick, and your hounds are not blown (be sure to 

 attend to that), you may make a quick cast in the direction which the 

 hounds were inclining, by forming a small circle first, and a larger circle 

 afterwards, if you are not successful : but if the hounds are blown, you 

 should invariably hold them back ; for when hounds have run a long 

 way hard, they lose their noses for want of wind, and run beyond the 

 scent, especially if there is water in their view. 



I am well convinced that, if more confidence were placed in the noses 

 of the animals than in the huntsman's skill in forcing and lifting, not 

 only more foxes would be killed, but far better runs would be ensured. 

 When a huntsman does exhibit his own scientific manoeuvres, let him 

 combine patience with quickness, and watchfulness with cool determina- 

 tion ; when the " field" presses upon his hounds, he should by no 

 means lose his temper, nor allow himself through jealousy or reckless- 

 ness to be driven from his ground, nor from a want of nerve and decision 

 be led to hold on his hounds in a contrary direction, to which it was 

 evident when the old hounds first threw up the fox had in all probability 

 gone. Quietness, with ivell-timed cheeriness, should be the order of the 

 day. Let 'em work it themselves as long as they can ; and, when they 

 can't, let 'em fancy they are doing all the work while you are holding 

 'em on the line without taking off their noses, or casting them. When 

 you do make a cast, let it be a good large one, and not across the middle 

 of fields, but under the line of hedges, or in an open country along the 

 green balks, or nnploughed ridges. Hang to your hounds, and they 

 will in difficulties hang to you. In fact, you may say of a pack of hounds 

 what the Duke of Welhngton once said of his army during the Penin- 

 sular war : — " When other generals," said the hero, " commit an error 

 their army is lost by it ; when I get into a scrape, my army get me out of 

 it." Never deceive them or disappoint them of their well-earned blood. 

 Keeping a pack in blood is the grand secret, and next to this, luck in 

 weather is of the greatest consequence, Hoimds which have been un- 

 fortunate for weeks, owing to adverse weather, have, by one genial and 

 good-scenting day, been restored to their accustomed efficiency — I mean 

 the sort of huntins; mornino- on which Will Todd* used to look so de- 

 lighted in Oxfordshire, when after his first salutation he was wont to ob- 

 serve in his broad Yorkshire lingo : — " This is a naice morning, sir ; 

 he mun either fly or die to-day." No doubt it is the duty of both master 

 and huntsman to show all the sport they can in the open ; but the pack, 

 upon the goodness of Avhich all depends, should never be sacrificed to 

 suit the caprice of a set of foolish schoolboys and steeple-chase dandies, 



* Will Todd was second whipper-in to his grace the Duke of Beaufort, when 

 Philip Payne was huntsman and Will Long was first whipper-in. He was afterwards 

 huntsman to the Old Berkeley. 



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