WHEN TO EAT A FOX. 201 



use to make the hounds eager; it lets them all 

 in ; they recover their wind, and eat him more 

 readily. I should advise you, at the same time, 

 not to keep him too long ; as I do not imagine 

 the hounds have any appetite to eat him longer 

 than whilst they are angry with him. 



The same author whom I quoted in my tenth 

 letter, and who tells us how we should not eat a 

 hare, is also kind enough to tell us when we 

 should eat a fox ; I wish he had also added the 

 best manner of dressing him : he says — " La 

 chair du Renard est moms mauvaise que c'elle 

 du loup ; les chiens et meme les homines en 

 mangent en aiitomne^ surtout lorsquHl s''est 

 nourri et engraisse de raisins.'''' — You would 

 have been better pleased, I make no doubt, if 

 the learned gentleman had told you how to 

 hunt him, rather than tvhen to eat him. 



I shall end this letter with an anecdote of a 

 late huntsman of mine, who was a great Slip- 

 slop, and always called successively, success- 

 fully. One day, when he had been out with 

 the young hounds, I sent for him in, and asked 

 him what sport he had had, and how the 



and to let in the tail hounds. The fox is thrown across 

 the branch of a tree, and the hounds are suffered to bay at 

 i)im for some minutes before he is thrown amongst ther.i. 



k3 



