4)56 HUNTING. 



quently surprised in their naps by hounds drawing 

 upon them, up wind, particularly when gorged with 

 food. In the faculty of natural instinct, however, 

 they are vastly superior to hares, and equal in this 

 respect to the dog ; there being well-attested in- 

 stances of their being sent, marked^ upwards of fifty 

 miles in a bag, and, having escaped being killed by 

 hounds before which they were turned out, being 

 retaken in their native woods. But it is in his 

 last moments, when seized by hounds, that the 

 superiority of character in the fox over the hare 

 exhibits itself. He dies in silence ; but he sells 

 his life dearly ; for, revengefully seizing upon the 

 first hound that approaches him, he only relinquishes 

 his hold with the last gasp. 



When first the fox was hunted in Great Britain, 

 he was considered merely as a beast of prey, and 

 killed in any way in which he could be got at, 

 generally by being caught in nets and pitfalls, or 

 killed at earth by terriers ; his scent not being con- 

 sidered favourable to hounds by our forefathers. 

 Although they admitted it to be hotter at hand 

 than that of the hare, their favourite object of pur- 

 suit, they believed it to be sooner dissipated ; but 

 perhaps the real cause of their objection was, in the 

 general inequality of speed and endurance in the 

 hounds of their days and a really wild fox ; and 

 foxes then were undoubtedly stouter, and able to 

 run much greater distances from point to point 

 than they now do, when they have comparatively 

 so short a distance to travel for their food, as well 

 as beino" often over-fed. These animals, then, beinff 



