ftOO THOITGHTS UPON HUNTINCJ. 



conildered as Icllifh and folitary amufemenls, 

 compared with hunting ; to which, as many as 

 plcafe are welcome. The one might teach pa- 

 tience to a philofopher ; and the other, though 

 it occufion great fatigue to the body, feldom af- 

 fords much occupation to the mind. Whereas fox- 

 hunting is a kind of warfare ;— its uncertainties, 

 its fatigue?, its difficuUics, and its dangers, render- 

 ing it interefling above all other diverlions. 



That you may more readily pardon this digref- 

 lion, I return to anfwcr your letter now before me. 



I am glad to hear that your men have good 

 voices; mine, unluckily, have not. There is a 

 friend of mine, who hunts his own hounds ; his 

 voice is the ftrangeft, and his halloos the oddef}- I 

 ever heard. He has, however, this advantage :— 

 no dog can pofiibly miftake his halloo for an- 

 other's. Singularity conftitutcs an eflential part 

 of a huntf man's halloo :---it is for that reafon 

 alone, I prefer the horn, to which, I obferve, 

 hounds fly more readily tlian to the huntfman's 

 voice. Good voices certainly are pleaiing ; yet it 

 might be as well, perhaps, if thofe who have 

 them, were lefs fond of exerting them. When a 

 fox is hallooed, thofe who underftand this buli- 

 nefs, and get forward, may halloo him again;* 



yet 



* Should a fox be hallooed in cover, while the hounds are at 

 fault J if they be long in coming, by getting forward yon may 



balloo 



