SHOULD CAST HIS HOUNDS. 253 



to consider what part he himself has next to 

 act : but instead of this, I have seen hounds 

 hurried away the very instant they came to 

 a fault, a wide cast made, and the hounds 

 at last brought back again to the very place 

 from whence they were so abruptly taken, and 

 where, if the huntsman had had a minute's 

 patience, they would have hit off the scent 

 themselves. It is always great impertinence 

 in a huntsman to pretend to make a cast him- 

 self, before the hounds have made theirs. Pru- 

 dence should direct him to encourage, and I 

 may say, humour his hounds, in the cast they 

 seem inclined to make, and either to stand still 

 or trot round with them, as circumstances may 

 require. 



I have seen huntsmen make their cast on bad 

 ground, when they might as easily have made 

 it on good. I have seen them suffer their 

 hounds to try in the midst of a flock of sheep, 

 when there was a hedge near, where they might 

 have been sure to take the scent; and I have 

 seen a cast made with every hound at their 

 horse's heels. When a hound tries for the 

 scent, his nose is to the ground : when a 

 huntsman makes a cast, his eye should be on 

 his hounds ; and when he sees them spread 



