Officers and Hunt Assistants 273 



settle these disputes when once the blood of the pack 

 is up. 



The earth-stopper is usually some old faithful hunt ser- 

 vant who has seen better days, possibly an assistant about 

 the kennels. In England he is generally a superannuated 

 gamekeeper. He is invariably something of a " character," 

 and knows, or has the air of knowing, more about foxes 

 and their ways and about hunting generally than most of 

 the men who ride to hounds. During the summer months 

 he and his pony tramp the country for miles around. He 

 knows every earth and every litter of foxes within a 

 radius of twenty miles or more of the kennels, and will 

 tell you which farmers preserve the litters and which 

 trap them. 



When, on the evening before a meet, the huntsman and 

 the Master have held a council of war and decided on what 

 particular covert they will draw, the earth-stopper is 

 instructed accordingly; and soon after midnight, when the 

 foxes are prowling about in search of food, he mounts his 

 pony, and, with a lantern on his arm and a shovel in his 

 hand or slung on his back, goes the rounds of all the 

 earths in the neighbourhood of the covert proposed to be 

 drawn on the morrow. Arriving at an earth, he collects, 

 or has collected on the way, a bundle of sticks two feet or 

 more in length. These he binds together with a withe, 

 and crowds them into the earth, usually throwing upon 

 them a light covering of loam, his task sometimes requir- 

 ing half the night and a ride of twenty-five or thirty miles. 

 After the hunt he goes out and unstops them again, unless 

 for some reason it is thought best to keep them closed. 



