262 HUNTING MAXIMS. 



the following rules, viz. that, with a good scent, 

 their cast should be quick; with a bad scent, 

 slow; and that when the hounds are picking 

 along a cold scent, they are not to cast them 

 at all. 



When hounds are at fault, and staring about, 

 trusting solely to their eyes and to their ears, 

 the making a cast with them, I apprehend, 

 would be to little purpose. The likeliest place 

 for them to find a scent is where they left it ; 

 and when the fault is evidently in the dog, 

 a forward cast is least likely to recover the 

 scent.* 



When hounds are making a good and regu- 

 lar cast, trying for the scent as they go, suffer 

 not your huntsman to say a word to them : 

 it cannot do any good, and probably may make 

 them go over the scent. 



When hounds come to a check, a huntsman 

 should observe the tail hounds : they are least 

 likely to over-run the scent, and he may see 

 by them how far they brought it. In most 

 packs there are some hounds that will show 

 the point of the fox, and, if attended to, will 



* Hounds know where they left the scent, and, if let 

 alone, will try to recover it. Impatience in the hunts- 

 man, at such times, seldom fails in the end to spoil the 

 hounds. 



