NOTITIA VENATICA. 147 



Tally-lio ! by Jove ! we're beat again : oiir old friend slipped through 

 the next hedge, and the hounds hung to a fresh one ; we coidd not stop 

 them until too late, and found ourselves at five o'clock at night in a 

 great Avoodland without blood. I can only add I have always since taken 

 better care in similar cases. Another time Ave Avere beat in a very sin- 

 gular manner : avc had run a cub to ground early in the morning in 

 Ryton Wood, and as the sun Avas getting up and little probabihty of 

 getting blood on that day, except by digging the fox Avhicli Ave had 

 marked, it Avas resolved to have him out ; the spout Avas not a very 

 deep one, and the hounds had marked the end of it, and had scratched 

 doAvn upon the fox, Avhile I Avas keeping the other hole safe by standing 

 in it until one of the Avhips returned with a spade. The baying of the 

 hounds at the further end so alarmed an old badger, avIio was the laAvful 

 possessor of the said earth, that he immediately determined to make his 

 exit at my end, and charging me Avith all the force he could muster, and 

 getting betAveen my legs, fairly put me on my back ; the hounds, of 

 course, seized him before he had run fifty j^ards, and the cub, taking 

 this opportunity of decamping, effected his escape, to the great mortifi- 

 cation of the Avhole party. 



Trying as the circumstance of being frecpiently beaten by your fox is, 

 I think accidents to the hounds are by far more annoying. In the 

 neighbourhood of coal-pits and mines, hounds sometimes cUsappear rather 

 suddenly, and Avhen hunting near rocks and clifi"s, fall over, and are 

 thus destroyed. They are also noAV and then hung up in poachers' wires, 

 by Avhich, if not downright killed they are occasionally seriously injured 

 in their limbs and toes. Keepers' traps, set either for vermin or rab- 

 bits, dreadfully annoy hounds, where they may, either through neglect or 

 spite, have been left Avithout being struck. It had used to be fearful 

 Avork, some years back, before the railroad had knocked up all the long 

 coaches : if the road home lay along a turnpike road on Avhich there 

 Avas much travelling, and the night Avas very dark and foggy, it Avas with 

 great difiiculty you could sometimes move the hounds out of the way be- 

 fore the mail, or some other ten-mile-an-hour vehicle, came right upon 

 you, the thick fog or sleet preventing your seeing its approach tiU nearly 

 upon the backs of the hounds. When Mr. Warde's hounds were com- 

 ing home one night, along the old Bath road, near Hungerford, a heavy 

 Bristol van came right amongst them, running over one hound called 

 Vovieher, the Avheel passing over his loins ; yet he recovered, and lived 

 to be a favourite stud hound afterAvards. When hounds are travelling, 

 they are liable to many accidents, unless under the care of most exj)eri- 

 enced and vigilant attendants, from being shut up in improper and ill- 

 ventilated places, such as old outhouses, small stables, &c., &c. The 

 following extraordinary accident is one instance of a pack of hounds 

 being entrusted to persons on a jovu'ney, Avhose ignorance and inexperi- 

 ence but ill qualified them for the attendance of such valuable ani- 

 mals :— On the 10th of July, 1844, Mr. Thomas Shaw Hellier 

 removed his hounds, horses (sixteen in luimber), &c., from his kennel 

 in WarAvickshire, Avhere he had hunted several seasons, to Coventry, and 

 thence by railroad to Nottingham, en route for Louth, in Liueoln- 



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