SCIENCE OF FOXHUNTING. 201 



an early find, and you kill your fox before twelve 

 or half-past, after thirty-five or forty minutes' burst, 

 there can be no objection to draw for another, when 

 hounds are in high feather, and their spirits ready 

 and willing. Never mistrust them then, for they 

 will assuredly barring untoward events give as 

 good an account of Number 2, although he may run 

 for a couple of hours or more. Afternoon foxes 

 are proverbially stouter runners than those found 

 in the morning, not because they are in reality 

 better in frame, but because, having enjoyed a 

 longer rest from the previous night's exertions in 

 seeking provisions for their larder, with longer 

 time for digesting their supper, they are equal to 

 go great lengths with their pursuers. There is 

 another turn also in their favour : scent generally 

 becomes worse towards the turn of the afternoon. 

 Hounds may keep on, running sometimes and 

 hunting sometimes, but, somehow or other, they 

 don't make that rapid progress they did in the 

 morning. Their speed also imperceptibly dimi- 

 nishes. Fast for one mile, slow for two, until by 

 a piece of good luck your fox may wait for you, or 

 a change from bad soil to good cause a diversion 

 in your favour. So long as a fox can maintain a 

 certain distance between his own corpus and the 

 pack, by slackening his pace the scent becomes less, 

 although we do not suppose this wily animal to be 

 cognizant of the fact, fact though it be. 



Upon several occasions we have been enabled to 

 prove this by ocular demonstration. Once in par- 

 ticular, after a severe chase, on our fox ascending a 



