208 PACK TO BE KEPT TOGETHER. 



a particular style of fox-hunting, which, per- 

 haps, may suit the country in which that gen- 

 tleman hunts. I confess to you, I do not think 

 it would succeed in a bad scenting country, or 

 indeed in any country where foxes are wild: 

 whilst hounds can get on with the scent, it 

 cannot be riglit to take them off from it ; but 

 when they are stopped fur want of it, it cannot 

 then be wrong to give them every advantage 

 you can. 



It is wrong to suffer hounds to hunt after 

 others that are gone on with the scent ; for 

 how are they to get up to them with a worse 

 scent ? Besides, it makes them tie on the scent, 

 teaclies them to run dog, and destroys that 

 laudable ambition of getting forward, which is 

 the chief excellence of a fox-hound. A good 

 huntsman will seldom suffer his head hounds to 

 run away from him : if it should so happen, and 

 they are still within his hearing, he sinks the 

 wind with the rest of the pack, and gets to them 

 as fast as he can. Though I suffer not a pack 

 of fox-hounds to hunt after such as may be a 

 long way before the rest, for reasons which I 

 have just given ; yet, when a single hound is 

 gone on with the scent, I send a whipper-in to 

 stop him. Were the hounds to be taken off the 



