TO THE FOX-HUNTER. 289 



want of blood, it will at that time be easy to 

 dig one to turn out before them when the wea- 

 ther breaks : but I seem to have forgotten a 

 new doctrine which I lately heard, that blood 

 is not necessary to a pack of fox-hounds. If 

 you also should have taken up that opinion, I 

 have only to wish that the goodness of your 

 hounds may prevent you from changing it, or 

 from knowing how far it may be erroneous.* 



Before you have been long a fox-hunter, I 

 expect to hear you talk of the ill luck which so 

 frequently attends it. I assure you, it has pro- 

 voked me often, and has made a parson swear. 

 It was but the other day we experienced an ex- 

 traordinary instance of it. We found, at the 

 same instant, a brace of foxes in the same 

 cover, and they both broke at the opposite ends 

 of it. The hounds soon got together, and went 

 off very well with one of them ; yet, notwith- 

 standing this, such was our ill luck, that, though 

 the hunted fox took a circle of several miles, he 

 at last crossed the line of the other fox, the heel 

 of which we hunted back to the cover, from 

 whence we came : it is true, we perceived our 



* Those who can suppose the killing of a fox to be of 

 no service to a pack of fox-hounds, may suppose, pei'haps, 

 that it does them hurt : it is going but one step further. 

 O 



