CHAPTER XLII 



EARTH-STOPPING 



One of the great worries which a Master of 

 Hounds and his huntsman have is to get the 

 earths stopped efficiently, and especially is this the 

 case in countries where the sandy nature of the soil 

 enables foxes speedily to open out fresh earths. 

 That useful functionary, the hunt earth-stopper, 

 whom we see represented in old sporting prints, 

 and who was in his day pretty nearly as great a 

 man in a fox-hunting country as the harbourer is 

 with the Devon and Somerset Staghounds, is in a 

 great many hunts no longer to be found, and pity 

 it is that it is so, for earths were always better 

 stopped when he was in office. 



Nowadays in many hunts the earth-stopping is 

 done by the keepers, and it is to be feared that 

 it is too frequently done in a very perfunctory 

 manner. 



Our friend in velveteen, anxious that there 

 should be plenty of foxes always when hounds 

 come to draw his coverts, and knowing, perhaps, 

 that the stock of foxes is scarcely up to the re- 

 quirements of the country, for some reason or 

 other is terribly afraid that hounds should kill a 

 fox, or, at any rate, that they should kill more than 

 one when they come cub-hunting. So he carefully 



