14G NOTITIA VENATICA. 



or amateur horse-dealers. Isotliing is so vexatious as being beat day 

 after day by want of scent or luck, and then, when the fruit is almost 

 within your grasp, to be denied the attainment of it. There is an old 

 story of Shaw, when he hunted the Duke of Rutland's hounds, being- 

 beat by his foxes for fourteen days in succession ; he, however, at last 

 got one to ground late in the day, and being determined to have him out, 

 dug two hours by candlelight, Avhen he drew him out himself, and, to 

 make sure of him, threw him amongst the hounds, who, being dazzled by 

 the light, missed him, and aAvay he Avent, as safe as a large woodland 

 at six o'clock at night could make him. 



There is also another story told of the celebrated Dick Knight being 

 beaten by his hunted fox, even after he had got him into the kennel, on 

 February 22nd, 1790. The Pytchley hounds, at that time the late Lord 

 Spencer's, met at Buttock's Booth. After finishing their first run, they 

 found an afternoon fox at a cover called Gib Close, which they ran 

 through Moseley Wood and by Broughton village, up to Pytchley House, 

 and into the kennel Avhere the hounds were then kept. Dick Knight 

 shut the hounds up in one of the courts, and whipped out the fox from 

 the lodging-room, where he had concealed himself. As soon as he was 

 at liberty, and the hounds laid on his line, he ran for the sand-walk, 

 where he was viewed several times, with the hounds close at his brush, 

 but at last he went away from the sand-walk, and got into the head of 

 earths, which had been imperfectly stopped, narrowly escaping with his 

 life, as he was viewed frequently in the midst of the pack.* 



Amongst the numerous instances of my being beat and cheated of my 

 fox, the following is worth relating, and Avhich proves how careful a 

 huntsman slioidd be to stand close to the mouth of the drain or earth 

 when blood is the object in view. After a long, slow run of one hour 

 and a half from Hay Wood, my hounds run a fox to ground, in the 

 month of October ; we dug him, and although I had him in my hand 

 and condemned, to gratify a good preserver of foxes in the neighbour- 

 hood, I ordered the whipper-in to put him down in the next meadow, 

 being more easily persuaded by an improvement in the scent during the 

 last twenty minutes of the first run. After two minutes' law, the 

 hounds were laid on the line, and away they went for eighteen minutes 

 like pigeons to ground again in a large main drain leading from a fish- 

 pond at Springfield, the seat of J. Boultbee, Esq., as good a judge of 

 hunting and as great a friend to foxes as ever rode a nag. I requested 

 the pond-sluice to be turned, and booked the fox " dead as a stone," I 

 was almost feehng for my knife to brush him, and stood about fifty 

 yards from the mouth of the drain to allow the pack to have a clear run 

 at him as he came out ; with breathless anxiety we watched the clouded 

 water as it streamed out over the greensward. " Here he comes ! here 

 he comes ! here he comes ! " And, sure enough, he did come, attended 

 by his three sons.f 



* From an old numusciipt, entitled " Pytchley Chase-book." 

 t This accounted for the disappearance of the remainder of a litter of cubs, out of 

 which we had killed one, about a nionlii before, from an adjoining cover, where tliey 

 were bred. 



