398 HUNTING. 



beneficial to them. But when chopped in a cover, 

 (generally the effect of accident, and not, as Mr. 

 Hawkes supposed, of vicious propensity in any in- 

 dividual hound,) we consider a round of beef would 

 be a more acceptable present to them ; nor is the 

 case much altered when a fox is digged out of an 

 earth, after perhaps an hour's delay. The writer 

 recollects to have heard Mr. Osbaldeston assert, 

 that the best week^s sport he ever had in Leicester- 

 shire when he hunted it, was after his hounds had 

 been out nine days in succession without tasting a 

 fox. 



" Mr. MeynelFs natural taste,"' continues Mr. 

 Hawkes, " led him to admire large hounds ; but 

 his experience convinced him that small ones were 

 generally the stoutest, soundest, and in every re- 

 spect the most executive. His hounds had more 

 good runs than any pack of his day. Two very 

 extraordinary ones happened of a very rare descrip- 

 tion. One was a run of one hour and twenty 

 minutes without a cheeky and killed their fox. The 

 other was two hours and fifty minutes without a 

 cast^ and killed ! The hounds in the first run kept 

 well together, and only two horses performed it ; 

 the rest of the field were unequal to its fleetness. 

 The other run alluded to was performed by the 

 whole of the pack ; and though all were up at the 

 death, two or three slackened in their pace just at 

 the last. One horse only went the whole of it."*"* 



Mr. Hawkes thus speaks of the necessary quali- 

 fications of hounds to show sport — "To obtain a 

 good run, hounds should not only have good abili- 



