Vlll 



Preface 



of the hunt, of the workings of the hounds, the plots laid 

 by the artful Reynard to fool them, and the counter-plots of 

 the clever huntsman. The men who follow hunting year 

 in and year out, through fair weather and foul, through 

 youth, manhood, and age, are invariably the men who 

 possess this knowledge, and who, instead of simply hunting 

 to ride, are classed with the men who ride to hunt. This 

 work is therefore intended to give the novice an insight 

 into the game from the point of view both of hunting and 

 of riding, so that he may obtain from the sport a full 

 measure of the delights it has to offer. 



The author makes no attempt to set up a code for 

 officers of the hunt. He states the conditions and moves 

 of the game from a member's and not from an official's 

 standpoint. He has never occupied any position in the 

 hunt except that of a modest riding member who dearly 

 loved the sport, especially the hunting part of it. His 

 ambition has been to keep in sight of the hounds, and he 

 is quite contented to let the racing men and jealous riders 

 share all the honours they can extract from the satisfaction 

 of being called "first flight men." A more important 

 claim is that he has had considerable experience in breed- 

 ing, rearing, and schooling hunters that have been for the 

 most part a credit to the system adopted in their training, 

 and has been fortunate in bringing to this work quite ex- 

 tensive observations of many different packs of hounds in 

 European countries, as well as in the United States and Can- 

 ada. His chief aim is to encourage this most noble sport 

 for sport's sake, to contrast the genuine sportsman with the 

 artificial, and to pay to that noblest of animals, the horse, 



