SCIENCE OF FOXHUNTING. 99 



despair at his new owner's blundering way of 

 doing business. 



As to staghounds, it is well known that the 

 scent of deer is the strongest as well as sweetest of 

 all game. Hounds luxuriate in it. They have no 

 necessity to work with their noses on the ground, 

 like foxhounds or harriers; over and through many 

 opposing difficulties. The scent of this large animal 

 is carried widely behind him as he flies up wind. 

 Widely and wildly do his pursuers stream away in 

 his wake, with heads well up in the air, to inhale 

 the odoriferous vapours floating there. They have 

 little else to do than put their best legs foremost, 

 except upon very rare occasions. And then the 

 result. The deer is brought to bay, and their vic- 

 tory is won. They have beaten him ; he can no 

 longer escape them on land, and therefore takes 

 refuge in the water. No doubt, like many of their 

 assistants in the chase, they would like to have a 

 taste of his haunch ; but the master says " No," 

 and he lives to run another day. They are partly, 

 if not wholly, satisfied. In like manner, fox- 

 hounds are not down-hearted when they have run 

 their fox to ground ; but when, day after day, they 

 are prevented by ill-luck, i.e., bad scenting weather, 

 or the injudicious interference of their huntsman, 

 from coming to a satisfactory conclusion, the " hope 

 deferred maketh the heart sick/' and they become 

 dispirited. 



Marking a fox to ground is also a very necessary 

 lesson in the education of young hounds, and a cub 



H 2 



